RallyNorth.net

Sachems doing it with 'D'

Tuesday, January, 01 By John Shimer
Staff writer

As a conductor, coach John McNamara won the best new artist of the year award last winter for producing the storybook run to the state semifinals with the Pentucket girls basketball team. A year season, the second-year coach and his band of blossoming superstars are once again producing the hits.

Beginning league play before the Christmas break, Pentucket racked up four wins in impressive fashion, never allowing more than 31 points in any contest.

As the winter break draws to a close, Pentucket remains undefeated after reeling off three more victories, looking better in each successive game in taking home its first-ever Greater Haverhill Coca-Cola Christmas Hoop Classic title. The Sachems thumped Swampscott in the final, 51-35, indicating last year's so-called upset in the Division 3 North semifinals as no fluke.

With an offense that occasionally finds itself sputtering through shooting slumps, the Sachems have been the epitome of one of the most famous cliches | defense wins championships.

And with the likes of like of "The Daamen-ator," 6-3 center Kirsten Daamen, backed up by a core group of seven girls who played together on an AAU team that finished in the top eight at nationals two years ago, the Sachems are beginning to perfect their stifling "help defense."

"We keep it simple," McNamara said. "Our basic philosophy to contain the player with the ball and not let them beat you, but it takes five players on the court working together to play good team D.

"In our system, the weak-side defense is just as important as the on-the-ball defense because we want to get steals off passes so that we can speed up our transition game. It is fundamental defense | don't reach, contain the dribbler by staying between them and the basket, and when you trap get the steal off the pass. We have an intelligent group of girls here and they pick things up quickly."

In the girls game where inside easy baskets are so important, it doesn't hurt that McNamara may have the most dominant defender in the CAL in Daamen. Despite starting her basketball career later than most, beginning in the seventh grade, Daamen has proven to be a natural, according to her coach.

"She has some instincts you just can't teach, specifically her timing on blocking shots and her ability to come over on help defense," McNamara praised. "Kirsten is great at keeping the ball in bounds off blocks as well. She's not one of those players that smacks the ball a mile and grunts loudly. Instead we often get the ball off her blocks leading into our transition game. In the first game, when she had 12 blocks, we were able to get easy transition buckets on at least half of her blocks."

With Daamen anchoring the last line of defense, the Sachem players routinely have two options: play aggressive pressure defense on their specific player or funnel their mark to Daamen.

"Having Kirsten back there allows us to go for more steals, but it also enables us to cheat up on girls we know are very good 3-pointer threats, and take that away from them," said Pentucket point guard Erin McNamara.

"From our 1-v-1 and shell drills in practice, that force you to look at both the player you are guarding as well as the person with the ball, we have learned how to play a five-girl 'help defensive' system," Ashley Viselli finished. Nothing could be more representative of the Sachem defense than the loud horn for a shot-clock violation.

"We pride ourselves on getting 30-second clock violations because that means we have played collective team defense, not just individual defense," said John McNamara. "That may hurt some of our statistical numbers, including our offense where we don't get as many touches, but the girls make the sacrifice because they want to win."

For one player in particular, last year's leading scorer Viselli, the offensive numbers are down, but the sophomore is emerging as one of the best lock-down, defenders in Division 3.

"Ashley has covered each team's leading scorer in every game this season, and between her and Kirsten I believe I have two of the best defenders in the state," coach McNamara said of Viselli, who hasn't allowed an opponent to score more nine points this year. "I've seen a lot of high school teams play in the last two years, and I haven't seen two players that more impact than our two girls. They are fantastic, but the other three girls that play behind them in supporting roles are great as well."

It took until the fifth game of the season, when the Sachems played Timberlane in the opening round of the Haverhill tournament, for a team to hit a 3-point shot against them. In fact, before the tournament, the Sachems had not allowed an opponent to reach double-digits in field goals made. With consecutive 16-point victories to their credit, the 7-0 Sachems looked poised to slow down everything in their paths | not the other way around.