On a hot day, the Rye Garnets warmed up in the second quarter to defeat Irvington 29-24 in the championship game of the O’Hara Summer League. It was Rye’s second straight league title as they also defeated the Bulldogs in the finals last summer.
“They out-rebounded us and that was the difference in the end,” Irvington coach Gina Maher said. “Obviously, not a lot of points were scored but it was a fairly close game. It was never out of reach and at one point we were ahead. Rye finished off the fourth quarter better than we did.”
Irvington had a lead at the start of the game, which, due to the extreme weather, was moved inside the gym at Irvington High School. But Rye caught fire in the second quarter to take a seven-point lead into halftime.
“We came back in the second half, but they stayed up by four or five points till the last 3 or 4 minutes,” Maher noted. “We were trading baskets.”
She continued, “They had a guard who hit three big outside shots. They pressed us and we were not ready for their press because we hadn’t really practiced [the press break]. Rye is very athletic and they played well. They’re well coached and Margo [Hackett] does a good job.”
The Bulldogs received contributions from a variety of players.
“We had a lot of kids there and we played them all,” Maher said. “Aly Raimondo had a good game and a couple of other girls had good games.”
Irvington finished the summer league with a record of 7-2.
“I think we made progress,” Maher said of the league overall. “I think the biggest and best part of summer league is that it gets the girls playing some basketball out of the season. But more than that is that some of the girls who will probably play JV are playing with the older girls who were in the same position they were. It builds programs rather than just teams and I think that’s huge. They also learn to adjust to playing with different girls at different times.”
She continued, “The biggest thing is it builds up some kind of a chemistry between girls of all ages. I forget what team it was but they had a lot of eighth-graders and they’re going into their freshman year, playing against girls who are going to be seniors. It’s a great lesson for them too.”
After reaching the Section 1 Class B championship game but falling to Putnam Valley last season, the Bulldogs are hoping to build off the summer league success for the 2022-23 varsity season.
“I had 16 girls on varsity last year,” Maher said. “I think that some of the girls that hadn’t played a whole lot last year and played way more in summer league hopefully realize that they’ll be an important cog in the system next year.”
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