Joseph Case girls basketball team advances to the Sweet 16 after beating Blackstone Valley

SWANSEA — The Case clamps came down in the second half.

Holding Blackstone Valley to six points in the third quarter, the 14th seeded Cardinals advanced to the Sweet 16 of the state Division 4 girls’ basketball tournament with a blue collar, 55-45, first-round win on Friday night on Monahan Gymnasium’s Stanton Court.

“Our defense was good in the second half,” said Dave Silva, whose Cardinals (16-5) will play at No. 3 Lunenburg or host No. 30 Hampshire Regional in the next round. “We really locked in on our man-to-man.”

Up 32-31 2:29 into the second half, the Cardinals held 19th seed Blackstone to two points for the remainder of the quarter to lead 39-33. A Case 16-point fourth quarter sealed the deal.

“I think we really locked in on defense and slowed the ball down and were able to get into our game to defeat them,” said Case senior Abigail Sirois (15 points, 19 rebounds), the South Coast Conference small division player of the year.

Blackstone’s last lead was 27-26 with 63 seconds left in the first half. Sirois answered with an inside basket and junior Allie Holden drilled a picture jump shot for a 30-27 halftime lead.

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“We won tonight because we really played as a team,” said junior Brooke Orton (15 points). “Great team defense. We were down a little bit but we came back to win the game.”

Case sophomore forward Liberty Gazaille, showing off some nice low-post moves, bagged a team-high 16 points and hauled down 12 rebounds.

Rylie MacDonald had 10 rebounds and Tori Bettencourt dished out six assists.

TALENTED FOE

Emma Ballard, a senior, scored a game-high 17 points, 11 in the first half when the lefty was effective finishing in transition. Case largely contained her in the second half.

“We definitely talked about getting back in transition,” Gazaille said. “They were kind of releasing on the wings and getting easy layups. So we really wanted to sprint back and load up the paint to stop those layups.”

“That was talked about in the locker room (at halftime),” Orton said. “We needed to stop No. 2 from getting to the basket and we did that.”

TROUBLE AT THE LINE

Case might have enjoyed a more comfortable win if not for some uncharacteristic struggles at the free-throw line. The Cards were 13 for 27 at the foul line. Blackstone was 5 for 12.

“We’re usually 70, 75 percent at the foul line,” Silva said.

BIG 3 DELIVER

Gazaille (pronounced gazelle), Sirois and Orton accounted for 46 of the team’s 55 points.

HOW FAR CAN CASE GO?

“We can go as far as we want if we just stick to what we do,” Gazaille said.

“We can do great,” Sirois said. “Just keep pushing and working hard.”

Blackstone Valley 10 17 6 12 — 45

Joseph Case 14 16 9 16 — 55

Case scoring: Bettencourt 1-2–4, Sirois 6-3–15, Gazaille 7-2–16, MacDonald 0-0–0, Orton 4-5–15, Holden 2-0–4, Moniz 0-1–1. Totals: 20-13–55.

Herald News and Taunton Daily Gazette sports editor Steven Sanchez can be reached at ssanchez@heraldnews.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @Chezsports. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News today.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Joseph Case girls advance to Sweet 16 after beating Blackstone Valley