Northville outgunned by Hammond in Class D state final

TROY, N.Y. ( NEWS10 ) — The Northville Falcons girls basketball team couldn’t overcome the size and depth of Section X’s Hammond Central in the Class D state championship game, falling 54-34 to the now two-time defending state champs.

Early on, the Red Devils offense got to work in the paint, then eventually struck from beyond the arc, opening up the game on a 13-4 run. Playing a big part in that was Ava Howie, who scored 20 points in the game and gave Hammond Central an 18-9 lead at the end of the first quarter.

The Falcons’ offense found some life in the second quarter. They erased an eight-point deficit and cut the Red Devils lead to one with 2:10 left in the quarter but went into halftime down by three.

Hammond Central put their foot right back on the gas in the third. Landree Kenyon was the catalyst scoring 11 points in the quarter and scoring 29 points overall.

The Falcons’ defense struggled to find an answer for the Red Devils offense down the stretch, and head coach Jim Zullo believes that a lack of a deep bench and stature played a role.

” We’re very very inexperienced, and when we play a good team like that it shows,” said Zullo. “I hope we’ll be back next year. I hope we can get this right. We’re so small we get pounded on the boards and it takes a lot of energy, you get tired and then you can’t make shots and so we go on little spurts, we make a few shots. They’re a very good team,” Zullo added. “They just killed us inside they’re too big.”

Hailey Monroe surmounted 12 points in the loss but is already using it as fuel to get back for next season.

“We’ve gotten ten times better since the beginning of the season, so I can’t wait to see how much better we get,” Monroe said.

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