Female dragons break a season record

Courtesy of Tom Henning

The High School for Math, Science and Engineering Girls Varsity Basketball team achieved their highest points scored in a game this season in a 29-16 loss to Institute for Collaborative Education on December 9th, 2011.

One of the biggest problems for the Dragons was their passing. The Dragons would usually either overpower a pass or misinterpret a player’s path when passing to each other. Many fast breaks for the Dragons were ended by these little errors. “I feel that next practice we are probably going to take a step back and focus on like the mechanics of the pass a little bit more and then add passing under pressure a bit,” said head coach Nick Diunte.

With a close score near the end of the first quarter, ICE began a full court press. The press proved troubling for the Dragons as ICE began to cause several turn overs near the rim. To make up for these turn overs, the Dragons double teamed the ICE players, but the fast breaks sometimes proved too quick for this. Once the clock finally finished its countdown, the Dragons saw themselves down 8-2.

ICE went through the second quarter causing many fouls, but the Dragons only managed to score two out of seven of the free throws, one of which was to convert a three point play. The problem with this is that those were the only points the Dragons could get during the quarter which ended 15-6.

The third quarter was the most productive quarter for the Dragons. Not only did the defense stop ICE from scoring for more than four minutes, but the Dragons’ offense erupted. After having been double teamed for a while, Fintzi scored an impressive three pointer four minutes into the quarter to send the crowd cheering.

The Dragons continued to score and even managed to put up more points in the quarter than they had in their past two games. This was only accomplished when Mikaela Bloch connected with a three point shot at the buzzer to bring the score to 25-14.

With the Dragons finally getting used to the ICE offense, other than limiting ICE to only four points for the fourth quarter, the Dragons also managed to finally gain an offensive rebound with four minutes left in the game.

A playoff run is out of the question, but Leah Cabrera, HSMSE’s captain, looked at this game as a good sign. “I think it's a great improvement. I see a lot of us trying harder now and being more focused and putting in more energy and taking time to see what's happening.”