Girls' Basketball Cruises Past Deerfield Team

DEERFIELD, MA – Despite their success on Friday and Saturday, the new year did not look too promising for the Big Red girls’ basketball team. After coming into 2014 with an untarnished 6-0 record, they dropped their first game back from winter break 53-28 at Noble and Greenough.However, the team made a great effort to bounce back immediately by responding with two impressive victories, first with a 57-41 win at home against BB&N on Friday, and then with a 63-42 take-down at Deerfield.The girls knew how big the Deerfield win was. “Winning on the road is really hard, especially at a place like Deerfield,” senior Yvonne Dean-Bailey said. After the lengthy bus ride to Deerfield, it is no easy task to get off the bus and compete. To make matters worse, the team needed to not only focus on beating Deerfield’s girls, but in Deerfield’s small gym, full of opposing fans, Big Red also had the additional problem of playing against the crowd too.The team also faced a disadvantage in the front court. The Big Green sported two tall players anchoring their four and five, while this season’s Exeter team lacks the height that Deerfield possesses. To counter the size difference, head coach Johnny Griffith decided to use a 2-3 zone, having senior Susannah Gray and lower Peace Kabari defend the low post against Deerfield’s duo of bigs. On the tandem’s defense, senior combo guard Nicole Heavirland described Gray as “really good” and “dependable” while saying that despite Kabari’s lack of height, “she is really athletic and can jump to their level.”With the Big Green’s two bigs unable to match up with the lightening quick Kabari and Heavirland on the fast break, Exeter turned Deerfield’s biggest advantage into a disadvantage. The team also boasted better shooters than their opponent. “We have four shooters who can simply go lights out on any single night and [Deerfield] really only had the personnel to guard at most, two of us at a time,” Dean-Bailey said.“Yvonne [Dean-Bailey] was shooting really well, got a bunch of threes, and Nicole had a hot hand,” lower Michaela Streep said about two of her senior leader’s performances.Heavirland, too, noticed Dean-Bailey’s performance from beyond the arc. She also noted that Kabari “drove to the basket very well” and gave praise to senior Maddie Firkey for contributing some buckets under the basket. The senior guard also stated that the “awesome coaching” of Griffith and assistant Ellen Gunst was surely a contributing factor in the team’s victory.When asked about the effect the win will have on the team going forward, Heavirland stated that “with this win, we have more confidence.”With an 8-1 record to finish the week, the squad can look ahead to two tough games. On Saturday, they face a strong test on the road against a 6-2 Choate team that is looking to avenge an eighteen point loss from last year at the hands of Big Red. And on the following Wednesday, they will face St. Paul’s (1-4) at home.Dean-Bailey explained what the Big Red needs to do in order to continue their success, “We just need to keep telling ourselves that we’re playing the best team in the league and that in order to beat them we’re going to have to work our butts off. We are just going to keep doing what we’re doing: running, shooting, playing stellar defense and hopefully by Sunday we’ll be ten and one.”