Heart of a champion

By Mark Goodman/ mgoodman@cnc.com

Braintree Forum Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - Updated: 03:59 PM EST

WORCESTER - As if they would have done it any other way.

   After a two-point win over Framingham and two overtime games against Brockton and Lowell, the Braintree High girls basketball team saved its best for last Saturday night.

   Down by six with five minutes left against Springfield Central, the Wamps ended the game with an 11-2 run, taking home a 59-56 victory and the Division 1 state championship trophy.

   For seniors Stephanie Geehan, Merry MacDonald, Brittney Chappron, Maegan Cook and Brianna Whitehouse, their high school basketball careers could not have had a better finish.

   "It’s everything that we wanted in our senior year," Cook said. "I’ve played with four of these girls since fourth grade, and it’s just the right way to end it: with a state championship."

   As has been the norm with this team the last two weeks, Saturday’s game saw its share of drama and nail biting in the closing seconds. After Springfield senior Necole Evans made a tough shot in the lane to cut Braintree’s lead to two at 58-56, the Golden Eagles called timeout with 26.7 seconds left to set up their defense in an attempt to steal the ball and secure a game-tying (or winning) shot.

   The Wamps broke the press and worked the ball around in their offensive end as time wound down, until a timeout was called from the Braintree bench with 11.3 seconds remaining. Braintree’s worst nightmare nearly followed, as Springfield’s Felicia Barron knocked the ball away from Chappron and raced toward the loose ball, which was now in the Wamps’ backcourt.

   Chappron managed to recover and get the ball just ahead of Barron, who finally fouled the Wamps guard with 2.9 seconds remaining.

   "We knew they were going to foul and I knew I was going to have pressure on me," Chappron said of the play. "She (Barron) plays great defense. That was a little nerve-wracking; that would’ve been huge if I had lost the ball. But, I knew we were winning it and I wasn’t going to let it go." 

Braintree’s go-to player when opponents are in fouling mode, Chappron went to the line and made the first, giving her team a three-point lead. The scenario was similar to that of the Division 1 South semifinal against Framingham, when Chappron went to the line with 18 seconds left and the Wamps up by two, and made both shots to put the game away.

   It didn’t work that way this time, as the second free throw rimmed out. Cook tipped out the rebound, however, and Chappron dove to the ground to try and control the ball. She did, the final buzzer sounded, and Chappron got up and heaved the ball as far as she could. 

   Game over. It was time to celebrate.

   "I went to Merry, Meg and Steph first," Chappron said. "They’re the first ones I went to because we’ve been playing forever and we’re best friends."

   As for Braintree head coach Nick Krot, whose hair probably got a little grayer over the last couple weeks, it was just another day at the office. Ups, downs, and comebacks from the brink of elimination are what he has come to expect from his team.

   "This is the way the team is. That’s how they play the game," Krot said. "Slow start, fight back, maintain your composure, and win the game. That’s what they’ve done for the last three games."

    The comeback

   A 3-pointer from Barron (team-high 19 points) gave Springfield a 54-48 lead with five minutes left in the game. Braintree had just cut an eight-point deficit to three in the span of two minutes, but Barron’s shot seemed to say that this may just not be Braintree’s night.

   There was no need to worry, however, as the Wamps did what they had done for the entire tournament. They rose to the occasion when they needed to the most.

   After a Geehan steal led to a Chappron lay-up in transition to make it 54-50, Braintree came up with another big stop. Cook got the rebound, and Geehan was fouled on the Wamps’ subsequent possession. The 6-foot forward hit both free throws, scoring two of her game-high 21 points, and it was now a two-point game with 3:26 left. 

Geehan continued her dominance, blocking a shot on the defensive end and then coming up with an offensive rebound and putback on the other to tie the game at the 2:32 mark. Thirty seconds later, Cook stole the ball and found MacDonald, who hit a 17-footer from the baseline in front of the Braintree bench. For the first time in the second half, the Wamps had the lead.

   A key to the Wamps’ comeback was their full-court press, a tactic they haven’t used often this season and one they didn’t employ until coming out of a timeout with 6:25 left in the game. The Eagles had difficulty breaking it, and after Barron’s three, did not score another point over the next 4:30.

 

   "I contemplated starting the press a little earlier, but I thought better of it," Krot said. "I thought we were getting some momentum going, but they came back and answered every one of our calls. So I said, ’This is the time [for the press].’ It turned out to maybe be a turning point and a momentum changer. It took them out of their offense just a little bit. Not that we got a lot of steals, but it just took them a little out of their offense."

  The play

   Chappron hit what turned out to be the game-winning basket with 53 seconds left on the clock off a pass from MacDonald. Those that have followed the careers of the seniors since their youth basketball days knew that this was no ordinary play.

   It was a play that MacDonald, Chappron, Geehan and Cook learned in the fourth grade when they first became teammates. Chappron came off a couple screens around the top of the key, and MacDonald handed off the ball to her from the high post.

   Driving down the right side of the lane, Chappron tossed up a bank shot over a Springfield defender and into the net. It was just the latest example of the Wamps’ veterans coming up big in crunch time. 

"I guess that’s our signature now," MacDonald said. "It’s funny that that play would work in a state championship game; we never would have realized that in fourth grade when we learned it."

   An unusual beginning

   When a lay-up from junior forward Katie Lynch gave Braintree an 18-6 lead with 8:58 to go in the first half, the scoreboard offered a welcomed contrast from the Wamps’ two previous games.

   In the sectional final against Brockton, Braintree found itself in a 15-6 hole just over five minutes into the game. At the Garden two nights later, Lowell jumped out to a 17-11 advantage less than five minutes in.

   The play of Lynch off the bench was a big reason for the Wamps’ strong start Saturday night. She came in for Cook at the 11:45 mark of the first half after the senior captain had picked up her second foul. With Geehan also sitting with foul trouble, Braintree needed a spark in the frontcourt.

   Energetic as ever, Lynch came in and helped spur a 9-0 run in a three-minute span, culminating in her basket. During those three minutes, Lynch had three points and an amazing six rebounds.

   "It’s typical of the team," Krot said of the bench play. "We’ve had guys step up. Katie Lynch stepped up tonight. Brianna Whitehouse steps up, Beth Principi steps up. For a short time, they go in there for what we need from them, which is the aggressive rebounding and boxing out.

   "We’ve had to do this many times, and that’s why you need some depth on the bench. You just need it, and these guys provide it."

   It’s a good thing they built that cushion, because after the Lynch basket, Springfield Central began to show why it came into the game with a 20-4 record and a Division 1 Western Mass. championship. The Eagles outscored the Wamps 27-12 over the last 8:30 of the half to go into the locker room with a 33-30 lead.

   "It was the first game out of all the tournament games that we had been down at halftime, and we were a little nervous because we had won all the games before," Cook said. "We knew we could come back with intensity on defense and offense, hitting the open shots and playing as a team." 

The defensive intensity was the biggest change in the second half, as it was lacking during that stretch in the first half. Barron, in particular, was unstoppable, scoring 12 points in that run. The Springfield sophomore broke down the Wamps’ defense over and over with her remarkable handle, leading Krot to offer some choice words for his players at the break.

   "I was a little strong-minded at the halftime talk, because we needed more help," Krot said. "We were too concerned with our own man and we weren’t getting that help defensively that we needed to have against [Barron], because she’s a hell of a player and she was getting by our best."

   It took the Wamps a couple minutes to heed their coach’s advice, as Springfield scored the first six points of the second half to take a 39-30 lead, its biggest of the game. A Geehan basket, assisted by Cook, started an 11-4 run that brought Braintree back into the game with nine minutes to go.

   The next four minutes were evenly played, with Springfield maintaining a lead of between three and eight points until the Wamps’ game-ending dramatics.

  Degraan on point

   The Wamps’ seniors got most of the attention during the championship run, and deservedly so. Without Geehan’s dominating all-around play, the clutch scoring from MacDonald and Chappron, Cook’s toughness and Whitehouse’s presence off the bench (not to mention her game-winning shot against Brockton), Braintree would not have gone all the way.

   But right there with them the whole way has been Degraan, as steady a point guard as there is in the state. With the same lightning quickness that she displays on the soccer pitch, the Wamps junior can single-handedly break just about any press. 

Although not called upon to score many points, Degraan can do that too when needed. Add in her considerable defensive skills on the perimeter, and Degraan contributes in plenty of ways that don’t always show up in the box score.

   "You can’t have the success that we’ve had without a kid like Jessie Degraan," Krot said. "In the league we play in, if you don’t have two good guards, you’re not going anywhere. Jessie gives us a lot of things that we need from that position."