Amherst girls perfect in regular season
Senior night for Klaes, Leonard
Friday, February 19, 20101
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AMHERST - It was only fitting for the Amherst Regional girls basketball team to complete its perfect 20-0 regular season on the same night it celebrated the careers of seniors Jenna Klaes and Alyssa Leonard.
When the duo entered the program, along with coach Christal Murphy, for the 2006-07 season, the Hurricanes were coming off a 1-19 record and had not been in the playoffs since 2003.
Amherst completed its turnaround from doormat to super team Thursday night with a 55-31 win over Chicopee Comp.
"To do this with Jenna after eight seasons together, I'm speechless," said Leonard, who also played Suburban League with Klaes. "And (Murphy) has brought us a long way over the past four years. We have all these girls to thank for it. It was a very special night."
It's been a steady climb for the Hurricanes (20-0, 10-0 Suburban) under Murphy, with Leonard and Klaes starting all four years.
"I remember Jenna and Alyssa coming in as freshmen. Four years have come and gone very quickly," Murphy said. "It's just been an honor and a privilege to coach those girls for four years."
The team finished 15-7 in 2007, then had 12 wins in 2008 and 11 last season, but the group has yet to advance beyond the western Massachusetts Division 1 quarterfinals.
But this year, they are expected to advance to the semifinals without playing a single game. The Hurricanes are all but guaranteed the No. 1 spot in the sectional tournament, which will be announced at the seeding meeting at noon Saturday at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. There are only seven Division 1 teams that have qualified for the postseason, so the top seed gets a bye to the semifinals.
The challenge, however, is that Amherst will therefore likely have to deal with a 10- or 11-day layoff before playing another game.
"We just have to push each other. The 10 of us all know what we want," Leonard said. "If we have that in mind every single day in practice, the practice conditions will be more intense than game conditions. We want it badly. Hopefully we'll be able to pull it through."
The Hurricanes will celebrate their undefeated regular season at Amherst College Saturday when they will be guests of the undefeated women's basketball team and honored before the Jeffs' New England Small College Athletic Conference Tournament quarterfinal game against Wesleyan at 3 p.m.
"They've invited us to come to acknowledge that we were both undefeated during the regular season," Murphy said. "We all thought it was a really neat thing that two programs in the same town were undefeated."
In Thursday's game, Leonard and Klaes combined to outscore the Colts 38-31. Leonard led all scorers with 21 points, while Klaes had 17 points, four rebounds, four assists and three steals.
Juniors Mariah Lesure (nine rebounds, four blocks) and Nicole DeMarchena (seven rebounds, three steals) had five points each.
"We just came out to play our game. We knew it was our senior night, but we didn't want to get ahead of ourselves. It was a sad night knowing that it was our last (regular-season) game," Klaes said. "Alyssa and I knew we wanted to come out hard together for our last game of the regular season. Our whole team came together and got us the win."
Amherst struggled shooting from the floor all night, but its defense once again pulled through, holding the Colts (12-8, 7-3 Suburban) to just seven points in each of first, third and fourth quarters.
The Hurricanes have held their opponents to 37 or fewer points 17 times this season.
"With the intensity and hard defense we play, we are a tough team. We always say our defense wins games," Klaes said. "Our shots may fall or not, but defense is always there."
Jim Pignatiello can be reached at jpignatiello@gazettenet.com. For more information, including a high school sports blog, go to www.gazettenet.com/hs-sports.
