Yesterday evening, the girls’ basketball team led wire-to-wire in topping Smithtown Christian in a non-league home match-up, 49-34, to improve to 4-1 on the season.
The size difference between the two sides was apparent during the warm-up and the Bears used that advantage to perfection, wearing down the under-sized Knights over the course of the game.
The Bears got out to a quick 6-0 lead after a Wura Obasanjo free throw, a Niamh Scanlon 3-pointer, and a Bekah Detwiler layup. A baseline runner got the Knights on the board, but Scanlon answered with a jumper of her own to push the lead back to 8-2. Both sides traded blows for several minutes, after which the Bears held a 12-10 edge. Another Detwiler layup preceded Scanlon going coast-to-coast for a score to give the Brook a 16-10 lead. Smithtown closed the quarter with a bucket to trail 16-12 after one.
Scanlon opened the second frame with a 3-pointer, but five straight points brought the Knights back within 19-17. That is as close as they would get the rest of the way as the Bears built a cushion they would not relinquish. Detwiler followed with a putback, Scanlon rebounded her own missed 3-pointer for a layup through contact, and Sarah Wong buried a jumper as the Bears built their biggest lead to that point at 25-17. Scanlon closed the quarter with a layup and a free throw as the Brook led 28-18 at the break, holding the Knights to just six points in the quarter.
Smithtown carved into their deficit with a layup to begin the third quarter, but a pair of putbacks from Nadia Hall and Obasanjo and another layup from Detwiler gave the Brook their biggest lead of the day, 34-21, at the four-minute mark. Obasanjo and Hall then sandwiched a pair of blocks around two Scanlon free throws as the Blue & White imposed their will. A Smithtown jumper briefly stemmed the tide before another Detwiler layup extended the lead to 39-23. Detwiler then ended the quarter with a big block as the Bears carried a 39-25 edge into the final frame.
In the fourth the Bear lead would swell to as much as 19 after another Obasanjo putback. The substitutions carried the Blue & White the rest of the way to a 49-34 win.
Scanlon led the Brook with 23 points. Detwiler added 12, Obasanjo 7, Hall 4, and Wong 2. The three-headed monster of Obasanjo-Detwiler-Hall gobbled up every rebound in sight, closing defensive stands, extending offensive possessions, and slowly wearing down the Knights mentally and physically.
The Bears are back in action on Monday afternoon in a home PSAA match-up vs. Portledge.
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