GIRLS BASKETBALL | Albany uses late run to pull away from St. Helena

“We definitely needed the win,” Albany coach Stacy Darouse said after the Lady Hornets snapped a four-game losing streak. “We have had a tough stretch. When you don’t play well for four quarters, you get beat, and we’re still battling. We’re just having trouble putting together four good quarters.”

Albany (9-6) led 33-22 heading into the fourth quarter, but St. Helena chipped into that deficit by working the boards as the Lady Hornets struggled from the field.

“It’s like quicksand – the harder you try, the deeper you get,” Darouse said. “We get in those lulls where the harder we try to make it go in, the more we miss, and we just couldn’t get one to fall. We couldn’t get a rebound and stick it back in. We got some great shots … that just didn’t fall. That happens to us every game too, so I guess we should kind of expect it. It’s just a matter of when.”

That enabled the Lady Hawks to put together an 8-3 burst, cutting the lead to 36-30 on Skye Williams’ bucket.

“That’s kind of been our MO all year,” Darouse said. “We get a lead, and we relax, and we lose our intensity on defense, and when we lose our intensity on defense, their shots tend to go in a lot more often. Well, once they start going in, we quit boxing out, so when they do miss, we miss our box (out) and they get a put back. It’s a snowball effect, so we’ve got to continue to work on not relaxing and putting somebody away when we do get that … lead.”

Things turned quickly in the Lady Hornets favor when Layla D’Fonseca came up with a steal and fed the ball to Maddy Oubre, who was alone under the basket for an easy layup, keying a 5-0 burst in which she scored all of the points. Oubre finished with nine points, along with Camyrn Woods and D’Fonseca.

“Sometimes I get frustrated, but I know that I can’t get frustrated because if I do that, I’m going to let my team down …,” Oubre said of working through the shooting woes. “I try to make myself stay positive, so I can do what I have to do to help my teammates out, because I don’t want to let them down.”

From there, Haley Meyers came up with consecutive steals for layups, making the score 45-30 before St. Helena’s SaRya Travis scored the game’s final basket.

“Defense is mostly what we always do,” said Meyers, who had a game-high 12 points. “That’s what we work on, and that’s what we need to do because defense creates our offense, and that’s how we get our steals.”

Neither team found a groove early as the score was tied twice, and the lead changed hands three times. Meyers’ jumper gave Albany a 7-6 lead, and the Lady Hornets never trailed again.

D’Fonseca connected on a three-point play following a put back, helping key a run which put the Lady Hornets ahead 13-6 at the end of the first quarter.

“St. Helena did a really good job of making Camryn (Woods) get rid of the ball, and we’re not as good when she doesn’t have her hands on the ball, but luckily the other kids were able to find Layla, and Layla does those things,” Darouse said. “We’re so used to seeing those things from Layla, we expect that from Layla. It doesn’t matter if she’s got three (people) hanging on her, when she goes up, we expect her to make it, and she expects herself to make it.

“Any time we can get an and-one under the basket, it allows us to get in our press, catch our breath a little bit, get points while the clock is stopped and get some momentum,” Darouse continued.

St. Helena cut the lead to 16-12 before Albany closed the second quarter on a 9-2 burst, fueled mostly by turnovers, to lead 25-14 at halftime.

Albany opened the third quarter on a 6-0 run, pushing the lead to 31-14 on D’Fonseca’s free throw, before the Lady Hawks cut the advantage to 33-22 going into the final quarter.