The Dike-New Hartford girls basketball team prevailed in a 37-34 win over Hampton-Dumont-CAL in a first round 3A playoff game Saturday, as aired on 104.9 KLMJ.
The Wolverines got out to a quick 11-2 lead, but the Bulldogs responded to get within five by the end of the period. Both teams went cold shooting in the second, as Hampton-Dumont-CAL won the period 5-4 with the first bucket coming several minutes in. DNH increased its lead to as many as 10, then 11 in the second half, but tenacious defense by Hampton-Dumont-CAL allowed them to string together scoring runs to close the gap to four. After recording numerous blocks and forcing several takeaways, MacKenzy Valley hit a layup to bring the Bulldogs within two. But Payton Foster helped seal the game for the Wolverines at the free throw line.
“You’ve got to give Coach Stafford and those girls a ton of credit,” Head Coach Matt Dove says. “They improved so much throughout the course of the year. And you could see it on the tape. You could see it just in everything they were doing, the confidence in those girls. They should be excited. They’ve got a young group. They’re going to be a tough team next year for sure. And hats off to those guys. A lot of credit to them for making things difficult for us tonight. Didn’t always have our best stuff, but there were some times, execution-wise, I thought we did some good things. Just maybe needed to see a little bit more of them. And then I think we stretched that lead out to 10 points, that’s when you’ve really got to ramp up your execution and try and really take control. Again, credit to Hampton-Dumont-CAL, they didn’t back down. That Valley girl was really good player. We made it hard on ourselves at times, but they had a lot to do with that.”
Foster led DNH with 15 points.
“It was a tough game, no doubt, it’s tournament time,” Foster says. “It’s just what we expect as we go on. Credit to Hampton-Dumont-CAL. They were fighting. They’re a good team. We played them early in the season. They definitely made lots and lots of improvements. So hats off to them for just coming out ready to compete.”
Hampton-Dumont-CAL Coach Miranda Stafford had high praise of the defensive effort.
“Kind of what you expect out of our girls, they’re going to work hard on the defensive end and then hope we can get something to go on the offensive end,” Stafford says. “It didn’t go our way, but super proud of what they put together on the defensive end tonight. They locked in this week in practice and knew what to expect and just were ready to work hard. We talked a lot on having to box out. They rebound really really well. They play really really physical, so we knew that we were going to have to kind of match that intensity. They wanted to prove themselves with the work that they’ve put in over the year. They knew that they didn’t show up at the beginning of the year. I mean, they just came out ready to play. All six that got on the floor tonight were ready, and they played physical. They boxed out well. They didn’t give up second shots and gave themselves a chance.”
Valley led the Bulldogs with 20 points.
Hampton-Dumont-CAL has ended its season at 7-15. Dike-New Hartford has advanced to a regional semifinal Wednesday at #1 (3A) Mount Vernon, which’ll air on 99 The Wave.
