SCARSDALE – The magnitude of the moment was beginning to overwhelm both sides.
A fragile lead was on the very of slipping away when Scarsdale freshman Zephyr Connolly squared up with 45 seconds to play. It took a lot of nerve to launch from behind the arc. Connolly blocked out her previous attempts that rattled off the rim.
The poise served her well.
“I knew it was going in,” Connolly said. “There’s a feeling you get when you know it’s going in.”
There was never a doubt. Her 3-pointer gave the Raiders just enough space to breath Wednesday and they used the burst of adrenaline to a finish a 41-35 win over Mount Vernon in a Southern Westchester Group 1 quarterfinal.
“High school basketball is so much different from AAU or travel,” Connolly added. “There’s a different feeling when you know it’s time to take a shot. I couldn’t make anything out there in the beginning of the game, but I think it’s important to stay calm and when you see a shot you know you have to take, slow it down.”
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A four-point edge sent confidence skyrocketing.
“Obviously, as the score gets closer, the nerves get worse,” Scarsdale center Abigail Talish said. “I have a lot of confidence in this team. Every time it gets close, we have young shooters like Zephyr or Ivy Bookvar in our previous game, who hit shots. We know what to do with the ball. If we’re up and there’s only a minute left, we know not to force anything, to calm things down and play our game.”