Girls Basketball Team Opens with Two Victories

The Revere High girls basketball team enjoyed a banner opening week for their 2010-2011 campaign, swatting away a pair of Northeastern Conference Large School rivals, Salem and Lynn English.

Coach Diana DeCristoforo’s Lady Patriots tossed a shutout in their first quarter of the season Tuesday at Salem, holding the home team Lady Witches to zero points.

“We work hard on our defense and take a lot of pride when we can keep the other team from scoring,” said DeCristoforo. “Even though we only scored seven points ourselves, we set the tone for the rest of the game.”

Indeed, the Lady Pats grew their 7-0 advantage into a 23-8 bulge at the half with the Lady Pat “D” once again all but stifling the Salem offense. A 37-21 cushion after three frames allowed Revere to cruise to a 57-32 triumph.

Morgan Jenkins, the runner up last season in the balloting for the MVP of the NEC, served notice that she will be the best in the league this year with a monster game of 27 points and 12 rebounds.

Marissa Parent hit for 10 points, followed by Gena Restiano with seven, Caitlyn Caramello with five, Ashley DeFraia with four, and Melissa Adreani and Michaela Maguire with two apiece.

Friday’s night home opener against English, the defending NEC champ, saw a large crowd turn out to root on the Lady Pats, who did not disappoint their growing band of followers.

Revere led all the way once again, turning a 14-9 lead after the first period into a 27-18 advantage at the half. The Lady Pats then displayed one of their trademark characteristics from last season as they came out firing on all cylinders after the intermission and delivered a knockout blow in the third period to zoom into a 47-26 lead. The final score of 63-42 was all but a foregone conclusion.

English, no doubt aware of how Jenkins lit up Salem a few nights earlier, packed it in to keep Morgan double and triple teamed all night. Although the strategy worked to a certain extent (Jenkins had 12 points on the night), the tight English zone opened up the outside shooting lanes for Restiano and Caramello. The talented duo took full advantage of the opportunity, with Restiano draining four three pointers to lead the Lady Pat score sheet with 18 points and Caitlyn hitting one three and scoring 16 points.

“We work on our outside shooting in every practice for just this sort of defense,” said DeCristoforo. “When we’re shooting as well as we did, it’s tough for a team to stop us because we have so many weapons.”

Parent, DeFraia, and Amy Rotger all chipped in with five points, with Adreani scoring a pair.

DeCristoforo and the Lady Pats traveled to Beverly last night (Tuesday) and remain on the road to Lynn Classical tomorrow evening. They will play in the Bishop Fenwick Tourney starting Monday at 5:00 against Londonderry, N.H. They will also play Wednesday in either the championship game or consolation contest against either Fenwick or Cambridge.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.