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Sports

Hayfield Girls Fall to Bulldogs in Round One

Despite Cochraham's double-double, Stone Bridge out hustles Hawks for the victory, 43-30

After winning wining its first-round game and losing its second in the National District tournament last week, fourth-seed Hayfield (11-12, 8-7) looked to pull an upset over Liberty District champion and first-seed Stone Bridge (23-3, 13-3) Monday night in the first round of the Northern Region tournament.

Shannen Cochraham powered her way through the Bulldog defense for easy buckets, shooting 5-for-9 for 10 points and 11 boards to add one more double-double to her resume, but Stone Bridge got hot in the second half and ran away with the lead as Murielle Tiernan posted a double-double of her own to help Stone Bridge advance to the second round with the win, 43-30.

Before tip off, Hawks coach Rudy Coffield said he was happy with his team’s performance during its district tournament, but knew Stone Bridge would be a tough opponent.

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“We played good basketball, and the top four teams in the National are all very good, so that tournament could have gone four different ways but it went pretty well,” Coffield said. “We have scouted them [Stone Bridge] and they play for 32 minutes, and we have to get out here and beat their energy.”

The Hawks gave their coach plenty of energy on defense as Brandi Smith ran the point with speed, dishing the rock inside to Cochraham. They held the aggressive Bulldogs to 15 points in the first half and were down by only one point as they headed into the locker room. Hayfield showed physical prowess in the third as Cochraham had four blocks, but injured her knee on the last one, running straight into the back wall where she would lay for several minutes.

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After being helped off the court, she eventually got her back into the game.

“I went up for the block, came down and my knee locked back. I tried to pop it back forward and I ran into the wall,” Cochraham said. “I went over to the trainer and he looked me over and I sat, but did not want to sit for long. I wanted to come back in.”

Cochraham did come back with 3:48 remaining in the third, but Stone Bridge had taken advantage of her short absence behind stellar play from freshman Megan Della-Penna, off the bench, who drained four of her eight points from the stripe and a quick jump shot in less than 70 seconds.

Hayfield missed its next two shots, but the Bulldogs would not falter. Cori Prince, who went 4-for-13 for a game-high 13 points, drained one of her three 3-pointers on the night from 20 feet. Teammate Hannah Beth Whitaker followed it up with a finger roll to give Stone Bridge a six-point lead heading into the final quarter.

Cochraham looked back to full health as she found her hot hand to roll off six points in the fourth. Taylor Jewett and Renee Reives would combine for 13 points but it would not be enough. Tiernan shot 4-for-9 to tie Prince for a game-high 13 points and added 11 boards, and increased her team’s lead to eight from underneath the basket.

Tiernan said the key was taking Cochraham out of the game as much as possible.

“We started to draw her to the outside from under the basket, and we are quicker so it worked,” Tiernan said. “We knew we were the quicker team so we wanted to come out, run them and make them tired which is what we did.”

Cochraham, who announced she will play basketball for Elon University on scholarship, said Stone Bridge was more hungry in the end but added that her team leaves it all out on the floor.

“They started attacking more and we started slacking more. They picked up on it and used that to their advantage,” she said. “Throughout all of our games people have always underestimated us. We always played with heart and hustled and a lot of teams were scared of us.”

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