By CHRISTOPHER SHABAN
Eagle Times Correspondent
LANGDON – Senior night didn’t go as planned for the five Fall Mountain seniors as Monadnock rode into town with the #1 ranking in the league and left the same way with a convincing 45-22 win on Tuesday. The game was all Monadnock as they controlled nearly every aspect from start to finish. “It was a big win on the road against a very good Fall Mountain team tonight in what may have been our best overall game of the season,” said Monadnock head coach Curt Dutilley after the game.
Fall Mountain seniors tonight were introduced before the game and were joined at mid-court with their families. Amber Beliveau, Allie Stoddart, Zoey Luopa, Chryssabella Craig and Isabelle Lord all started for FM head coach Brian Pickering tonight.
Points were few and far in between for Fall Mountain as an aggressive Husky defense disrupted the Wildcats with great anticipation and quickness. Fall Mountain was limited to seven field goals all night and a single three point hoop. Fall Mountain shot only 28% from the line connecting on 5 of 18 shots. On the Monadnock offensive end, patience was evident as Dutilley’s team was content to work the perimeter and wait for the open shot or free cutter to the hoop. Monadnock senior Baylee Smith was dominant as she poured in 14 points while owning the paint tonight.
The Huskies led 13-5 after the first period and 22-10 at the half as Fall Mountain was ice cold in shooting department and went four minutes without a point in the half. “Nothing went right for us tonight and once we started missing shots, everything just snowballed from there,” said Pickering after the game.
“Monadnock is just a really good team and they outplayed us tonight, plain and simple but I know we can play much better as a team,” added Pickering.
As Fall Mountain was unable to hit their shots, Monadnock was surgically adding to their lead and by the middle of the final quarter had opened up a 20 point lead as Pickering was making large scale substitutions. “Sometimes when you want a win so badly, especially on senior night, you press and put too much pressure on yourselves and I think that’s what happened to us tonight,” the coach added.
Sophie Bardis and Craig led the was for Fall Mountain with seven points each while Smith and Gwen Simpson had 14 and 10 points for the Huskies.
Monadnock sits atop the D3 standings with a 15-2 record and will host 6-11 Campbell on Friday while Fall Mountain now occupies 8th place and will travel to 12-4 Conant on Friday. The 16 team playoff field will allow the top 8 teams a home playoff game.
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