NORTHAMPTON — With just seconds left in the game, the Smith Vocational girls basketball team put its hands together to break up the huddle after a timeout and called out “1-2-3 believe!”

The Vikings needed every single person to buy in against a tough Smith Academy team, who threw everything it could at the Vikings on a sub-zero Friday night.

After scoring the first basket of the game, Smith Voc didn’t take the lead again until the final minutes of the fourth quarter. But bit by bit, the Vikings whittled away a 10-point lead to a one-point lead. With 3:30 left in the game, Maggie Sharpe hit a clutch basket to make it 27-26 Smith Voc, giving the Vikings a lead and putting Smith Academy on its heels.

A few more baskets secured the 34-32 win for Smith Vocational (4-7), the first time that Vikings head coach Kristin Marciniec could remember ever besting Smith Academy (2-11) in her six years as coach.

“It’s definitely stressful,” Smith Vocational’s Makayla Tatro said on the close game. “We all get in our heads a little bit, but then we get to that spot where we snap out of it and we talk, we communicate. You’ve got to slow down to think.”

Moving too fast was the Vikings downfall in the opening quarter, and the part of the game where Smith Academy shone brightest. The Falcons jumped out to an 14-4 lead after the first eight minutes, and that lead was primarily because of the team’s defensive effort. The Falcons press was too much for the Vikings to handle, and the Falcons forced turnover after turnover, giving them plenty of looks that they capitalized on.

“The effort was there, the hustle was there. We were forcing some turnovers and creating points off of those,” Smith Academy co-head coach Allison Slysz said. “But as the game went on, those opportunities became fewer and fewer, Smith (Voc) both played harder and harder, and we didn’t have as many opportunities to score on the break.”

The second frame was hard offensively for both squads; each team got one basket apiece but collectively took 16 shots from the charity stripe as the fouls kept coming. The Vikings outscored their opponents 7-3, but the Falcons still had a 17-11 lead heading into halftime.

“Defense, defense, defense,” Marciniec said on her message at halftime. “Take care of the ball, take care of each other, play together. It’s a young team. So majority sophomores and one senior, two juniors….(It’s) a young team really getting to see each other, take care of each other and not get frustrated with each other, which can be challenging at times, but I think they’re finally getting the concepts.”

One of those sophomores was a big difference maker for the Vikings offensively – Tatro put up 18 points, hitting six field goals and six shots from the free throw line. Sharpe and Maggie Lauder also put up some key points, scoring six and five points, respectively, but it was Tatro who drove a lot of Smith Voc’s offense. On the opposing side, Caitlin Graves put up 10 points to lead the Falcons.

As the game wore on, Smith Academy looked flustered at time trying to get its offense going. It wasn’t that the Falcons weren’t getting the looks – they were running the plays they wanted to and executing their system. The shots just weren’t falling for the visitors, and it came back to haunt them.

“All I know is that on Sunday when we get in the gym, all we’re doing is shooting and shooting free throws and hope that that’s going to make the difference as we keep moving forward,” Slysz said.

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