Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School and the Nantucket High School Whalers clashed in a rivalry showdown over the weekend to open the winter sports season with basketball and hockey.
The Vineyard girls varsity basketball team narrowly defeated the Whalers 36-32 at the MVRHS Pachico Gymnasium, holding back the Island rivals’ desperate, last-ditch offensive barrage to comeback from a 16-point deficit through the third and fourth quarter.
Elsewhere in the rivalry series over the weekend, the girls junior varsity basketball team also defeated the Whalers, 24-20; the Vineyard boys varsity hockey team dominated at Nantucket, taking down the across-the-sound rivals 9-1; the Vineyard boys varsity basketball team fell 67-60, and the boys junior varsity basketball team lost 49-43.
Mary Korba, head coach for the Vineyard girls varsity basketball team, said the Vineyarders were shaking off the “first game jitters,” but overall played true to their defensively-focused game plan to beat the Whalers on opening day.
“It’s always nice to win your first home game,” said Korba. “We knew that they had two solid freshmen coming in, so we really wanted to make sure that we could shut them down. We just knew that we had to play collective defense. That was what I told them going in, and I think they bought into that.”
The girls varsity basketball team opened the scoring against the Whalers in the first half on Sunday, but the Whalers responded with several successful offensive drives, pulling ahead by 9-8 to end the first-half over the Vineyard team.
The Vineyard’s patient defense started to pay off in the second quarter, pushing the pace of play in the team’s transitions from defense to offense to end the second quarter with a strong 28-12 lead over the Whalers.
Feeling the pressure of an early season rivalry matchup, the Whalers raised the intensity in the third quarter, narrowing the lead to 33-20 going into the fourth. The Whalers pushed hard in the last quarter, reducing the deficit to just four points before the clock ran out, earning the Vineyarders a 36-32 victory.
“Kudos to Nantucket in the second half,” Korba said. “They came back and gave us some trouble. Luckily we were able to persevere.”
Next up for the Vineyard girls varsity basketball team is a game against the Monomoy High School Sharks on Tuesday at the high school’s Pachico Gymnasium at 4:30 pm.
“We’re just looking to get better every day,” said Korba. “We’ll watch some film, take what we learned here, and put that into practice tomorrow, and look at Monomoy and get a game plan ready for them.”
Korba added that “defense is gonna win us games.”
“Obviously we have to put the ball in the bucket, but we’re a small team. I think we have to rely on our speed and quickness offensively and push the ball in transition,” she said.