Lenox girls’ hoops easily advance to play Gateway at home

The Lady Millionaires were neither haggled nor defended in their opening round playoff game against Franklin Tech on Tuesday.

Liz Mitts (14 points, 14 rebounds), Hayden Zinchuk (14 points, 10 rebounds) and Kathy Prescott (13 points) led the way for Lenox as the Millionaires built a 27-3 first quarter lead, before cruising 57-21 over Franklin Tech.

“We’ve been working on a lot of offenses against the zone,” said Lenox Head Coach Nicole Patella. “If we had moved on from today, we are going to go against a team [Gateway] who is most likely going to play zone – so we’ve been working on our [outside] shooting and zone passing.”

From the opening tip-off, Lenox controlled the game and opened the Franklin Tech zone out, as Prescott hit a three-pointer from the wing to start the game.

Prescott, who hit three treys against Franklin Tech, gives the Millionaires a third prominent scoring option – if she can knock down the outside shot.

“When she is open and makes her first one – we are good, “ Patella said. “She gets a lot of confidence – so that always helps and it takes a lot of pressure off [Mitts] and [Zinchuk] with most of the scoring.”

Prescott followed up with her opening three-ball with a steal on the inbounds pass that lead to her finishing with a lay-up. Lenox continued with its normal full-court pressure after each made basket to help build a 19-0 lead before a Tech’s Brooke Meuse free throw ended the Millionaires perfect run.

Mitts followed with a hook in the lane from a pass by Hollie Downer (four points), while Franklin Tech’s Megan Aldrich (seven points) finally hit a jumper from the wing for their only basket of the quarter.

While the Millionaires built up the lead to 38-8 at halftime, Patella decided to empty her bench the rest of the game and sporadically tried to fit in some starters to give them enough work before Friday’s home game against no. 5 seed Gateway, scheduled for 7 p.m.

After a weak opponent like Franklin Tech, some might be concerned the Millionaires won’t be ready for Friday’s game or even possibly against no. 1 seed Sabis in the semi-finals.

Coach Patella is not concerned.

“We had a very good week of practices during the break even though I had some girls away,” Patella said. “We had some good practices where I brought some of the alumni in so [a game like this] doesn’t hurt us, because we got to run some offensive sets.”

While Gateway plays in the same division as Franklin Tech, not known as a tough division, a date with Sabis (21-1) seems likely.

If Lenox can have Prescott knock down the open threes on the perimeter, the Millionaires have a realistic shot of a Western Mass title.

“We are physical and quick, and I think it will be a good match-up if we get to Sabis,” Patella said. “We have some scorers, they have some scorers, and it probably comes down to who has the ball at the end of the game.”

Posted by Tim Davis on February 28, 2013. Filed under High School Sports,Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry