AMHERST -- Hoosac Valley High School has been renovated for all of six months and it's already outdated.
Top-seeded Drury had beaten No. 7 Hoosac Valley twice in the regular season, but the Hurricanes stifled the Blue Devils' offense from start to finish en route to the program's first Western Massachusetts Division II championship, 47-35.
There's another banner needing to be raised in Cheshire.
"Awesome," senior Erika Lucia said. "One of the biggest games and I think I played more than I thought I would ever play."
It was Hoosac's third time playing for the title and first since 1992 when it lost to Taconic. The other two times were a 1981 loss to Drury and a 1976 loss to Hampshire.
It was a 12-2 run in the final 5:30 of the third quarter that gave Hoosac the cushion it needed to etch its place in history.
"We just picked up our defense, picked up our intensity and really came out to play," said leading scorer Jenn Gale (16 points).
As has been the case all year, it wasn't just one person that carried the team.
Emily Rosse answered a Shannon Garvey jumper to knot the game at 21, and Madi Ryan spotted up well beyond the arc and drilled a 3-pointer on the next trip down to break the tie.
Then three different Hurricanes found the score sheet before the quarter ended to give Hoosac a 30-23 advantage. Jenn Gale made a pair of free throws; Erika Lucia completed a pretty passing play for her only points, and Rosse took a beautiful touch pass over the top from Meg Rodowicz to cap the spurt.
Rosse was the key in the stretch, as she routinely beat Drury defenders down the floor, much to Drury coach John Franzoni's dismay. It was an aspect of the game Hoosac didn't utilize in the first half.
"I thought the key was Rosse getting down on that backside, though," Wojcik said. "In a game that it's tough to score points, if you can make a run like that, burst up like six or eight points, all of a sudden you're in great shape."
From that point on, it was like looking in the mirror for the Hurricanes.
Drury's opportunities were becoming few and far between. Franzoni tried to utilize a press and a trap defense. Hoosac, who has worked against pressure defenses all season during practice, broke both with relative ease. Drury was never able to score the quick six points it needed to get back in the game.
"I think we're used to pressure," Wojcik said. "We kind of knew what they were going to come with. We got girls in the right positions we thought we could get some breaks on the play."
Running the floor wasn't the only way Rosse contributed. Senior Tori Rumbolt went down with a broken right ankle in the second quarter and didn't return. Rosse was strong on the glass the rest of the way, and she finished with eight rebounds. She also recorded four blocks to keep Drury at bay.
"After Tori got hurt," Rosse said, "everyone noticed that everyone needs to pick it up for her."
The Hurricanes relied on Gale's steady free-throw shooting down the stretch to close out the championship. She made 10 straight from the line in the quarterfinal double-overtime win at Hampshire. She didn't need to make that many, but was 6 of 7 in the final 4:15 on Saturday. The first two pushed a four-point Hoosac lead to six when Drury had all the momentum. The other three made it a three-possession game in the final minute, sealing the win.
"When we missed a couple, I looked at Jenn and I just said ‘Go to the ball,' "Wojcik said. "Jenn is shooting them now, I would say the last two weeks, 80-85 percent. She's just got to go to the ball. She's confident. She's taking her time."
To reach Josh Colligan, email
jcolligan@thetranscript.com
On Twitter: @NAT_DigitalJosh
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