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Newark girls claim Section 5 championship
ROCHESTER — When you get to the championship level in a competitive high school tournament, something always goes screwy. For the Newark Girls Basketball Team, screwy was the fourth quarter Saturday night against Pittsford Mendon. With eight minutes left in the game, the Lady Reds had a 38-27 lead in a physical, defensive struggle, administering the coup de grace to the bigger, heavier Vikings. Then the floor started to come apart under the Reds. Mendon’s Kaelyn Gibson scored the first basket of the fourth quarter, and Newark responded with a singlefoul shot by Alyssa Fenyn. The Redshad a 10-point lead, 39-29, with 7:05 left to play in the Section 5 Class A Championship. Seven minutes later, the score was tied at 39. Newark had not scored a basket in the entire period, going 0-for-10 from the field. Fenyn had one last shot at the basket as the period ended, but it didn’t go in. Gibson got the first basket in overtime with 2:18 left in the four minute period. Newark evened things up with two Fenyn foul shots, one getting a lot of help from shooter’s roll. Then with 57 seconds left to play, Marissa Bunch dropped in a shot — the first basket for Newark in 11:10. Mendon would tie with foul shots at 45, then Shakista Woolfolk would win the game with less than a second left to play on a do-or-die drive and jump shot from the middle of the key. Newark 47, Mendon 45. “We got stuck at 39,” said Bunce after the game. “I’m still shaking. We were very excited. We knew it was going to be close. It was a very, very good game — that’s how we wanted our Sectional final to be, but maybe not that close and overtime. It was a good game.” Coach Diane Kirnie, who has now won 331 games and her second sectional title in three years, looked a little relieved. “I couldn’t believe that fourth quarter,” she said. “That’s never happened to us. We couldn’t buy a basket.” The final play was an all-senior affair with Fenyn bringing the ball downcourt, using up a little time (Newark inbounded the ball with 17.6 seconds left), and working a pick-and-roll with Woolfolk. Fenyn and Woolfolk were targets the whole game, absorbing a bullying from big Mendon bodies under the backboard. “The Mendon kids are big, and they clogged up the middle,” Kirniesaid. “Kaelyn Gibson is awfully tough to stop.” Bunce led the Newark scoring with 14 points, with Fenyn chipping in 12 points and six rebounds that were a result of rigorous work all over the court. Shelby Fogarty, who guarded Fenyn in Mendon’s one-onone defense, scored 16, grabbed six rebounds and blocked a shot to lead the Vikings. Gibson added 10 points and 10 rebounds, and Carly Napier, who spent the night draped on Woolfolk, had 11 points and eight rebounds. The Lady Reds next play Amherst at noon Saturday, March 14 at the Western Regional at Erie Community College. Copyright
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