It’s that time of the week again, as Wednesday evening means Hampshire County high school basketball notebook No. 3 is here. February is on the horizon, which means the eight (boys and girls combined) Western Massachusetts tournaments are as well. Teams across the valley are hoping to play their best basketball of the season over the next several weeks to be in the best position possible to compete for a sectional crown.

In this third edition of our weekly high school basketball notebook, I discuss the extremely close similarities between this year’s South Hadley girls basketball team and last year’s, both the Northampton and Easthampton girls basketball teams’ solid stretch of play and the bad luck that the Amherst boys have experienced this season.

If you missed the second edition, you can read it by clicking this link. And if you have any tips for notebook items that should be featured, please email me at gcote@gazettenet.com.

Below is the third high school basketball notebook of the 2024-25 season:

Last year, the Tigers started 3-3 and struggled to get their offense going in those losses. But after their third loss, a 44-37 defeat at the hands of Northampton, South Hadley ripped off 12 straight wins to end the regular season, and added seven more wins across the Western Mass. Class B and Division 4 state tournaments to make it a whopping 19 victories in a row before ultimately losing to powerhouse Cathedral-Boston in the state final.

This season has been more of the same for South Hadley. After suffering an early loss to Northampton once again, the Tigers have since won nine in a row, and they’re looking to make it 10 on Wednesday night with a win over Monson.

There are many special traits possessed by this South Hadley team, but one that stands out is the fact that the Tigers continue to win in a multitude of ways. Whether it be blowouts, tight games, high-scoring contests or low-scoring rock fights, South Hadley has won nearly every possible outcome of a game in the 2024-25 campaign – which is only going to help them come playoff time. This team is prepared for anything.

And it’s been mentioned in the Gazette before, but the balanced scoring from this Tigers group is truly a thing of beauty. Head coach Paul Dubuc’s squad is nearly impossible to game plan for. Take away players A and B, then C, D and E can hurt you. Good luck. South Hadley has incredible depth, including the Dean sisters (Cara and Caitlin), Kate Phillips, Ava Asselin, Maddie Soderbaum, CC Gurek, Olivia Athas, Taylor Bullough – shall I keep going?

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An underrated difficulty faced by a team that brings back the majority of its production from the previous year is the notion of complacency. Just because nearly everybody is returning doesn’t mean the same success comes with it. The hard work and effort still needs to be put in.

As of right now, South Hadley is doing just that.

The Blue Devils entered this weekend’s Hoophall Invitational in Springfield as winners of four straight games, and they had two contests awaiting them on Saturday and Sunday. Northampton took care of business the first day, steamrolling through Scarsdale High School (N.Y.) by 14 points behind 20 points from sophomore Emme Calkins, then took a commanding 23-7 lead into halftime on Sunday against Worcester’s South High School in a rematch of last season’s Division 2 Final Four.

But Northampton faltered in the second half, and scored only nine points in the third followed by nine more in the fourth while South went for 21 and 14, respectively, to storm from behind and win by one. The potential future state tournament matchup didn’t go Northampton’s way, but Perry Messer and the Blue Devils would likely welcome another crack at South after feeling they should’ve won the game on Sunday.

Nontheless, a strong showing in the Hoophall Invitational has Northampton sitting at 8-3, and it has a favorable schedule the rest of the way until its season finale with Springfield Central – which could be a game with a share of the Valley League title on the line if neither team experiences any bumps in the road until then.

As for the town over, Easthampton winners of three of its last four games – the Eagles only loss coming to 11-0 Lenox on the road. Easthampton sits at 7-4 this year, but it has been playing some very good basketball of late under head coach Brian Miller. Over the past four games, the Eagles are giving up just 30.5 points per game on the defensive end, a mark that will keep them in every game.

Samone Young, Nola Roos, Veronica Rapoza and Christine Raymond are staples for Easthampton, and add in Piper Collins, Grace Pappadellis and Addison Barr as well and the Eagles have a nice core of talent.

Despite losing to Lenox and Frontier (9-1) this season, Easthampton is still only one game behind a share of first place in the Franklin League North.

The Hurricanes may be 3-8 as of Wednesday night, but their season is really not that far off from being completely different. Six of Amherst’s eight losses are by eight points or less, including four of them coming by five points or less. It’s simply been tough break after tough break for Amherst, but the MIAA power rankings continue to have them inside the top 32, likely because they are playing really good teams very close on a nightly basis.

Amherst’s season opener was foreshadowing for how the first half of its year would go, as it entered the fourth quarter tied with Northampton before being outscored by five and losing 48-43 at Mullins Center. Against Putnam three days later, the ’Canes won the fourth quarter 18-13 to make things interesting, but ultimately lost by three. They trailed by one after three quarters against Taconic at home, but the Thunder won by four after an 11-8 final frame. And most recently, Amherst took one of the best teams in Division 2 (Holyoke) to overtime, but fell 56-54 after holding a three-point lead going into the fourth.

Mitchell Carey, Samuel Woodruff and Gael Buford have been good as is the guard play of Sabir Douglas and Tylahn Beckett, but Amherst keeps coming up just shy down the stretch.