The Westford Academy Girls’ Varsity basketball team suffered a devastating loss to Braintree High School in the MIAA Division I State Championships tonight. The final score was 57-46.
WAGB support was in high supply tonight as five full fan buses brought in hundreds of students to watch the game at the DCU Center in Worcester, MA. Superfan Sam Brewer led cheers for the large student section all through the evening.
Braintree came on strong from the beginning, scoring their first three points in the first 30 seconds after winning the tip-off. Senior Captain, Hannah Hackley, scored the first two points for Westford after sinking two free throws. Braintree held their lead throughout the first quarter, which finished with a score of 19-6.
Sam Hyslip started off the second quarter scoring two points in the first twenty seconds. She scored an additional six points during the quarter, and teammate Hackley followed behind with five points.
WA gained a large portion of their points this quarter from the nine Braintree team fouls, but this was not enough to overcome the Braintree offense. At the half, WA was down by 15 points with a score of 34-19.
The third quarter started off with a WA foul on Hyslip. Sophomore Karly Bigham came in with an impressive three point shot to boost the score to 36-22 points. WA remained behind Braintree while maintaining their deficit with a third quarter score of 45-34.
Tensions ran high in the fan section and on the court. With just the final 8 minutes in the fourth quarter, all Westford fans and players were hoping for a comeback.
With a little more than three minutes left in the fourth, Hackley put up two points, which brought the game to its tightest score of the quarter, 49-43.
The girls did their best to close the gap between them and Braintree, but the first quarter’s low score proved to be too much to overcome in the last quarter. Westford brought the game to a close with a final score of 57-46.
Although the team was disappointed by the loss, they left the court proud of the hard work they had put in this season.
“I’m very proud of our team, I don’t feel like we lost. I still feel like we are champions,” said head coach, Russell Coward.
Senior captain Rebecca Sennott added, “We’re proud of all of our accomplishments; we’ve accomplished a lot this season.”
Team dynamics have been a large part of the girls’ success this season.
“Everyone’s really proud of our team, and we’ve really just become a family. Everyone’s happy to be a part of the team for the run we’ve had,” said Cathryn Sennott, another senior captain.
Overall, the team has played a strong season and won the hearts of the entire Westford community.
“We had a fantastic season. [I] played a lot of basketball, coached a lot of basketball, this has been my favorite year by far,” said Coward. “The best thing was the way the girls came together at the end of the season and really kind of took it upon themselves to be great basketball players and the run we had and the support we had from the school and the town; I mean I’m so proud to be a part of the Westford Academy community.”
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