Pilgrim falls in semis

By ALEX SPONSELLER
Posted 3/10/20

By ALEX SPONSELLER After winning a thriller against Davies in the Division III Prelims and pulling off a quarterfinal upset over North Kingstown, the Pilgrim girls basketball team would come up short against Woonsocket 47-40 in the semis last week at

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Pilgrim falls in semis

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After winning a thriller against Davies in the Division III Prelims and pulling off a quarterfinal upset over North Kingstown, the Pilgrim girls basketball team would come up short against Woonsocket 47-40 in the semis last week at Ponaganset.

After a quiet first half in which the Lady Pats struggled to score, Pilgrim came back much stronger in the second and pull within five points in the final minute. However, Woonsocket would hold strong and punch its ticket to the Division III Championship.

“It couldn’t have started worse for us, but at half we decided that we needed to turn things up and press more. These kids never gave up and cut it down to five points in the final minute. I don’t even know if we had girls that could have played (Saturday) had we won, we had girls on crutches (afterwards). These girls gave it their all, it’s the best I’ve ever felt after a loss,” said Pilgrim coach Scott Bayha.

Nadine Ogni led Pilgrim with a game-high 14 points scored while Hannah French and Kelsey Burr added six each. Woonsocket had three girls score in the double digits, and was led by Erinee Agyemang with 13 points.

Bayha was proud of his team’s effort throughout the physical matchup.

“The effort, we didn’t play great basketball but our effort was awesome. The situation got to us (in the first half), we’re not a great shooting team, and they played man which was a weakness for us all season. They got on top of us, we would call play after play but it just didn’t materialize,” said Bayha, “They were very upset but that’s because they cared. They gave a ton of time to it, they wanted it, we always had two or three girls diving on the ball, it was awesome to see, it was really cool.”

Pilgrim pulled off a big upset the previous game when it clipped second-seeded North Smithfield 42-33 in North Smithfield’s home gym.

After a close first half, the Pats would pull away in the second as they outscored North Smithfield by nine points in the period. Faith Meade led Pilgrim with 11 points while Burr added seven and both Ogni and Tatyana Boiano six.

“North Smithfield is a good matchup for us even though they were the higher seed and at their gym. Our shots fell that day, the plays worked,” said Bayha. “That was a great game, everyone was hitting shots and it was great team basketball. The girls played smart, they moved the ball well and found the open girl every time. Heading into Woonsocket, we felt good, we were clicking, and we thought we had a shot.”

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