The last time – and only time – Greene made the girls’ basketball final four, the current group of varsity ladies were mere toddlers. Dribbling a basketball wasn’t part of the play time activities, and “taking it to the hole” usually meant the successful placement of food into the mouth.
The Trojans (23-1) won the school’s second-ever state playoff game just a week ago – the first in 15 years – at SUNY Cortland defeating Bishop Grimes, 41-31. What awaits is a 12:30 p.m. date tomorrow at Hudson Valley Community College against Section V champion Nazareth (21-5) in the Class C semifinals.
“The girls are really excited and looking forward to the opportunity,” said Greene head coach Dave Gorton. “All week we’ve tried to keep as normal a routine as possible under unusual circumstances.”
The Nazareth mark does indeed include five losses, a higher total than usual for most teams at this level. Those defeats, though, were to high-level competition. Twice the Lasers fell to Greece-Athena, a Double-A school that reached the section finals; one was to Double-A school Mercy; another came to Class B Section V champion Wayland-Cohocton, and the last was to Fayetteville-Manlius, another school substantially larger than the Lasers.
The Lasers are used to playing schools bigger than themselves, and they’re usually successful. Toiling in the Class B ranks until the past couple of years, Nazareth has previously reached the state semifinals four times, and were state runners-up in 2006.
“They’ve played good competition, and we know they’ve had a good program that has advanced to the semifinals at the state level four times,” Gorton said. “Even though they have lost to good competition, they have lost five times. That proves they are beatable.”
Senior Porsche Gavin runs the show for the Section V champs, and she had 17 points in a 58-40 regional finals win over Salamanca a week ago. Forward Megan Morrell added 14 points, 11 rebounds, and five steals in that game, and sophomore Harley Cleary added 10 points, seven steals, and five assists. Gavin relies on penetration to break down defenses, and she has a good outside shooter in Cleary waiting for kick-out passes.
The Lasers do favor a brisk pace with tough man-to-man defense mixed in with zone trapping in their halfcourt defense. If that sounds familiar to Greene, then it should. It’s pretty much the same style of play the Trojans faced a week ago when it topped Grimes. To top that off, the Lasers and Trojans match up almost identically in the size department. Neither team has a player taller than 5-foot-10 on the roster. Not that size is typically a concern for Greene. In at least half of their games this season, the Trojans have had no discernible size advantage.
“We’ve talked about (Nazareth) being a clone of us,” Gorton said. “If we are playing a mirror image, we have to make them execute to beat us. It sounds simple to do, but that’s what both teams will need to do to win.”
The winner of Saturday’s game will play either Hoosic Valley (Section II) or Stony Brook (Section XI) Sunday at 1:45 p.m. in the state championship game.