RallyNorth.net

Pentucket looks to clinch its second consecutive sectional title tomorrow

Friday, March, 07 By John Shimer
Staff writer

Winthrop coach Peter Grimes calls them his "Four Horsemen." While Courtney Finn, her older sister Kristen Finn, Nicole Giaquinto and Katerina Mallios may not be as speedy as the old Notre Dame football backfield or as famous as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, they are certainly making a name for themselves.

Winthrop (19-4) will be taking on Pentucket (20-2) for the Division 3 North crown at the Tsongas Arena tomorrow at 10:45 a.m.

They may not have any catchy nicknames, but Pentucket has built one of the finest girls basketball programs in the state over the past two seasons.

Under the watchful eye of second-year coach John McNamara, some of the more notable exploits include a 43-4 record and the Division 3 North crown a year ago.

But that's old news to Pentucket and its rabid following. With Swampscott now in the rear-view mirror, Pentucket is now focused on Winthrop for the chance to repeat as North champs.

According to McNamara, who attended Winthrop's last two playoff games and two other regular-season games | the Vikings caught fire at the right time.

"This will be a difficult chore because they can put points on the board," McNamara said. "Their best player Courtney Finn (a junior with 1,313 career points) has been lighting it up in the tournament, scoring 30 points (against Triton), 42 points (against Watertown), and 27 points (against Weston)," said McNamara. "They returned four players off last year's team that went 20-0 in the regular season and several girls off the team that went to the (North finals) in 2006, so they have big-game experience."

In fact this same matchup nearly came to a fruition a year ago when Winthrop was the North's No. 1 seed. The Vikings fell in the semifinals to Wilmington in overtime, 48-46. Pentucket narrowly defeated Wilmington, 41-39, to earn their trip to the Boston Garden.

And despite the fact that Winthrop lost to Swampscott twice this winter, McNamara is not taking anything for granted. "We can't look past them," said McNamara. "Typically they play a lot of zone and zone trapping, whereas Swampscott face-guarded us all over the court. But after the success the Big Blue had, Winthrop may try to do the same stuff." In particular, Pentucket had major problems inbounding the ball due to the Swampscott pressure.

"We talked about the pressure and how it affected us. Some was execution and fundamental stuff, but not a lot of teams can play defense like Swampscott because they had a lot of speed, desire and quickness," McNamara explained. "In the past couple of days of practice, we have worked on executing better picks, coming to the ball harder, and making more assertive passes. We didn't reinvent things, but we were trying to focus on execution."

They'd better execute properly because the Vikings have won their three tourney games by a whopping 70 points.