The Winthrop High girls basketball started well in its opening round contest of the North Sectional of the MIAA Division 3 State Tournament at Ipswich last Thursday, grabbing a 12-10 lead after the first period.
But some hot shooting in the second quarter by Ipswich soon proved too much for the Lady Vikings to overcome. By the half, the score was 29-23 in Ipswich’s favor. Winthrop’s Johnna Fisher sank a three pointer at the buzzer; but it did not stem the change of momentum in Ipswich’s favor.
By the end of the third frame, the Lady Vikings trailed 42-27, a double digit deficit from which Winthrop never was able mount a challenge en route to a 54-41 final score.
“We played well for a while, but Ipswich has a lot of weapons that created matchup problems for us, whether we played man to man or in a zone,†said WHS head coach Ignacio Oyola.
However, despite the loss which brought the Lady Vikings’ season to an end, Oyola was upbeat about his team’s accomplishments of the past year. “What I loved about this team is how we grew and got better as the season progressed,†said the coach, noting that the Lady Vikings doubled their number of wins from last season . “We had a very young team that came together as a unit which was really nice to see.â€
The contest marked the final game of her career for Fisher, the team’s lone senior, who became a dominant force by the midway point of the season in every game and who personally seemed to carry the team on her back as they made their late season drive to a tourney berth. Johnna scored 24 points in the Ipswich contest and pulled down 16 rebounds. She had a remarkable 17 such double-doubles in her team’s 22 games this season, averaging 16.9 points and 11.9 rebounds per game.
Other scorers in the Ipswich contest were Temison Meggison with five points and nine rebounds, freshman Theresa Jones with four points, Angelina Favaloro and Alyssa Mackey with three points each, and Poli Tsiotis with a bucket.