NORTH ANSON — Challenged by her coach in the locker room at halftime, Carrabec sophomore forward Cheyenne Cahill delivered.
Cahill scored all but four of her game-high 21 points in the second half Wednesday night, leading the Cobras to a 47-43 win over rival Madison in a Mountain Valley Conference girls basketball game at the Cobra Dome. With the win, Carrabec (8-6) swept the two-game season series from the Bulldogs and snapped a three-game losing streak.
“This is really, really nice,” Cahill said. “We needed this win. After those three losses, we really needed to get back up and show what we can do.”
Madison (8-5) trailed by as many as 11 points at two different junctures of the second half but each time rallied back.
After a poor shooting first half (12.5 percent from the floor) and a stretch in which they went nearly 12 minutes without a field goal after going 0-for in the second quarter, the Bulldogs started to heat up in the fourth.
A 14-5 Madison run late in the period cut the Carrabec lead to just 45-43 with 42.9 seconds remaining in regulation, but a pair of key free throws from the Cobras — one each from Brooke Welch and Trinity Slate (six points) — in the final half-minute sealed the victory.
“In the fourth quarter we started making baskets and started putting pressure on them and got some good things happening,” Madison coach Al Veneziano said. “We just ran out of time. We needed to move the ball a little bit more (early in the game).”
Players on both teams were in foul trouble all night, but Cahill was undeterred after the intermission.
She took advantage of favorable matchups in the low post, scoring 10 of Carrabec’s final 12 points in the third period. It proved a key stretch in response to a Madison run which had whittled a 29-18 lead down to 29-26 late in the period following one of Katie Worthen’s three 3-pointers on the night.
Worthen led Madison with 17 points.
“She’s been shying away a little bit trying to get her teammates more involved,” Carrabec coach Skip Rugh said of Cahill. “I told her at halftime it was time, that it was time for her to take charge in the post. She did.”
“We knew they were going to come out and bring more intensity than they did in the first half,” Cahill said. “We had to come out and bring even more (after halftime). So many other players stepped up. I couldn’t have done what I did if they hadn’t.”
Role players were significant to Carrabec’s success, none more so than sophomore Courtney Rollins, whose 11 points off the bench with Olivia Fortier and Skye Welch each in foul trouble picked up a tremendous amount of the slack.
“They played with confidence tonight,” Rugh said. “For the most part, they played poised and looked confident. This is a big win. We needed these (Heal) points to really be able to hold onto that seventh spot (in Class C South).”
Emily Edgerly and Brooke McKenney each added nine points for Madison, while Slate finished with six for Carrabec and Sarah Olson had five.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
