Brockport managed a combined nine points in the first and third quarters and could not recover as Canandaigua ended their girls basketball season with a 56-46 win in the Class A Section V playoff quarterfinals.
Juniors Emily Vergari and Gisela Allen scored the only two field goals for Brockport over the first eight minutes, but they trailed by only four.
That changed in the second quarter as the Braves generated several second and third chances with offensive rebounds. Still, the Blue Devils got three treys from ninth-grader Ava Velletri along with three-pointers by sophomore Ella Fadale and junior Emma Laureano to stay close, down 25-22 at halftime.
Brockport managed just one field goal and two free throws the entire third quarter as Canandaigua pulled away with a 12-4 run.
The Blue Devils got their offense back on track in the fourth quarter, but so did the Braves. Allen hit two three-pointers, Fadale added six points, and senior Erynn Hogan knocked down a late trey, but the Blue Devils could not get any closer than ten points of the lead.
“We couldn’t get going offensively, and then the circumstances of the game with things we’ve been making mistakes with the last five or six games, like rebounding and boxing out, was magnified, and I had to go with different line-ups because we were in foul trouble,” Brockport head coach Justin Laureano said.
“But every player who is a starter is a returning player and our leading scorer today is a freshman, so the future is bright. We just need to develop our ‘bigs’ in terms of rebounding and playing with their backs to the basket to provide some freedom for the guards so the defense can’t sit out in three-point land.”
Velletri led the Blue Devils coming off the bench to score 12 points with four rebounds. Fadale had 12 points, three rebounds, and four assists, Allen led with six rebounds to go with her five points, junior Emily Vergari netted five points, and Laureano had five boards with three points.
