Mercy Defeats Manchester 52-38 to Advance to Third Consecutive Final

For the third consecutive year, Mercy is returning to Mohegan Sun to play in the Class LL final. The Tigers defeated Manchester 52-38 in a hard-fought semifinal at Sheehan High School that was much closer than the final score indicated.

Neither team could do anything offensively for the majority of the first three quarters. Mercy’s tremendously tight zone defense and Manchester’s consistently aggressive pressure defense caused constant misses and turnovers on both ends. The Tigers defensive effort and impressive work on the glass mitigated their troubles scoring the ball.

Mercy trailed after the first quarter 705, and a three by the Indians Zanaija Gibson gave her team a 10-5 advantage early in the second. Mercy hit back with an 8-0 run to take a 13-10 lead, and a three by Jordyn Nappi gave the Tigers a 15-13 lead entering halftime.

“It’s not possible for us to play better defense than we did tonight,” said Mercy head coach Tim Kohs. “But they were great defensively, too. At halftime I was wondering what we could literally do to score. But I’ll tell you a big play was when [Cassie Santoro] took a charge from Perez early in the second quarter. Manchester sat her down with two fouls and I just thought it was a huge play. They never took her out.”

The Tigers continued to struggle on offense at the beginning of the third but eventually heated up halfway through the quarter. Mercy was more patient on offense and started to break the press, finding seams in the defense that led to open baskets. Meanwhile, Manchester badly missed six consecutive free throws in the second half of the quarter. Back-to-back layups by Maria Weselyj and Liz Falcigno off of gorgeous full-court passes by Nappi helped Mercy build a 29-23 lead. They went into the final quarter up 31-27.

If the third quarter showed Mercy beginning to figure out the Indians defense, the fourth showed them demolishing it. The Tigers began the fourth quarter with a 12-2 run that was keyed by two backbreaking treys from Weselyj. With Mercy continuing to break the Indian press for easy baskets and their defense forcing a bunch of turnovers, Manchester’s comeback chances disappeared.

“We made a couple of threes and broke their press for four or five layups,” said Kohs. “That gave us separation and we were able to relax.”

The Tigers won the fourth 21-11 and stretched their lead to 14 before winning by a final score of 52-38.

Kohs praised a trio of players for their impressive work in the contest.

“Maura Fitzpatrick and Sheena Landy did a great job on Perez,” he stated. “And I thought that Falcigno was great. That was her kind of game, really physical and tough. She’s the kind of kid you want to have in a foxhole with you.”

“We work really hard in practice on our defensive sets,” said Maura Fitzpatrick. “I just tried my hardest to not let my player score and I was able to do a good job. We were able to do that on defense throughout the night because we were all playing good help defense.”

Weselyj scored 10 points in the third and finished with 18 for the game. Falcigno and Nappi were also in double figures with 10 points each. Perez led Manchester with 15 points.

Mercy is playing in the Class LL final for the third consecutive year. The Tigers lost to Norwich Free Academy in 2010 and Career Magnet in 2011. Tim Kohs would love nothing more to end that streak. But he knows that Mercy defeating Newtown will be a significant challenge.

“Oh, I hope so,” he said. “But the fact is we have been consistently good. Class LL is so tough-we could have gotten knocked out in the first round. To get there three years in a row says something good about us. But I know that Newtown is very good.”

Newtown pulled off a 19 point comeback to shock Hillhouse and win the first semifinal game 65-60.

The date and time for the Class LL championship will be announced once all the pairing are set in the girls and boys CIAC championship tournament. It will be at Mohegan Sun either Friday or Saturday night.