RallyNorth.net

Tue, Feb 03, 2009 07:30 PM @ Central Catholic

Team	1	2	3	4	Final
Andover	19	8	16	18	61
Central Catholic	13	16	11	14	54

Cooney, uptempo Andover topple Central

LAWRENCE — Andover girls basketball coach Jim Tildsley made eye contact with Pat Cooney and asked a rhetorical question.

“How good was she?”

How good was Cooney’s daughter Shannon during the Golden Warriors’ 61-54 win over Central Catholic?

“I can’t say enough about Shannon,” Tildsley said. “She was the key to the game.”

Cooney finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds, but more importantly, helped contain Katie Zenevitch, who at 6-foot-3, has a six-inch height advantage.

“She was ready,” Tildsley said of the 5-9 Cooney, who face-guarded Zenevitch all night. “I’m so happy for her. She was ready for that task.”

Cooney, a senior, is elated to be contributing after not seeing much time in 2007-08.

“It seems so much more real than it did last year,” she said.

The win, in front of about 200 snow-braving fans at Memorial Gymnasium, gave Andover (14-2) back-to-back regular-season sweeps of the Raiders (12-3).

“It’s awesome,” Cooney said. “Everyone thought at the beginning of the year we wouldn’t be able to do it.”

Cooney played terrific defense, but the Raiders still got a huge effort from Zenevitch. The Boston College-bound junior center scored 17 points and grabbed 23 rebounds.

“They’re so much so physically bigger than us and stronger,” Tildsley said. “You saw it.”

Over and over again, Tildsley encouraged the Warriors to speed things up.

“Just keep pushing that ball!” he said during one second-half timeout.

And that they did. Guard tandem Natalie Gomez-Martinez (17 points, 10 rebounds, 9 assists) and Nicole Boudreau (game-high 24 points, 5 treys) were unstoppable in the open court.

“That’s the only way we can beat that team,” Tildsley said. “We just (have to) push the ball.”

Central was the aggressor early on. Moments after belting out the Star Spangled Banner, the multi-talented Gabie Polce (11 points) scored the first four points of the game, helping stake the Raiders to an 11-0 lead. The Golden Warriors, however, went on a 19-2 run to close out the first quarter and open up a 19-13 lead.

The game went back and forth until the final frame. Cooney’s bucket gave Andover a 49-42 advantage less than two minutes into the fourth. Despite Gomez-Martinez fouling out with 1:55 remaining, the lead never dipped below five points.

“Natalie really ties the team together,” Cooney said. “When she went out we knew we had to fill her spot.”

Afterward, Tildsley seemed a bit incredulous. After all, his team lost four starters to graduation last June.

“To do what we’re doing this year, it’s mind boggling to me,” he said. “It’s amazing.”