Belmont Girls' Basketball Hits Mid-Season Road Bump

Head coach Melissa Hart said the Belmont High School Girls' Basketball 7-3 record at the midpoint of the season just wasn't good enough. It could, it should have be a whole lot better. 

"No, I'm not satisfied with the record," Hart said.

"When you win a bunch, it's hard to lose two back-to-back especially when you needed one," said Hart after the team fell to Woburn High School, 52-46, a week ago Tuesday, Jan. 15 for their first home loss of the season. 

And it didn't get all that much better when Marauders were handed a 13 point loss away at Lexington Friday night, Jan. 18, 58-45, as the two guard attack of senior Cristyn Kajko (23 points) and freshman sensation Anna Kelly (21 points) nearly outscored Belmont on their own, leaving the team to see their record fall to to 7-4. 

Belmont's leaders, senior captains Olivia Lyons (17 points, 23 rebounds) and Katie Leinbach (21 points, 10 rebounds), were the only Marauders with more than two points as only six Belmont scored in the game. 

While the losses to Reading High and Lexington High at their home courts could be expected as they were seen as the league leaders at the beginning of the year, a one-point loss to Wakefield – when Leinbach and Lyons suffered from the flu during the game – and last week's defeat at the hands of Woburn (which would only score 23 points in their next game) left Hart shaking her head. 

"They just fought harder then we did. And it felt that we just wanted to get the game over with so we could prepare for Lexington," she said.

Twice in the game against Woburn Belmont had significant leads – 24-16 with three minutes to play in the second quarter, and 46-39 with four minutes to play in the game – but could not put away the Tanners which stuck to its game plan of trapping the ball everywhere on the court, which led to Belmont turning the ball over 23 times.

In addition, the Marauders continued to hurt themselves at the free throw line only hitting 30 percent of the shots (3-10). 

When push came to shove, Belmont could not find an answer to Woburn's sophomore forward Sam D'Angelo who scored 13 of her team's 15 in the final stanza, outscoring Belmont by a point in the quarter as the Tanners tallied the final 12 points of the game. 

"Nothing felt like it was going our way," said Hart after the late game collapse. 

The team will be on the road this week heading to Wilmington tonight and stopping off at Melrose on Friday, with the hope of taking both games to right the ship and creep ever closer to the post season.