Mansfield Girls Hoops Beats Foxborough, 56-37

The Mansfield High School girls' basketball team snapped their two-game losing streak on Tuesday evening, as the Hornets tallied 35 second half points to defeat Foxborough, 56-37.

“The score is no where near indicative of the competitiveness of this game,” said Mansfield head coach Mike Redding.  

Foxboro’s junior guard Andrea Marcotte handed out three assists, and tallied three points herself following the opening tip, which gave the Warriors a comfortable 10-2 lead halfway through the first quarter.

However, Mansfield cut the deficit to 10-9 before the buzzer sounded, as junior Gina Stoyle recorded a basket before senior Kaitlyn McCarthy, (seven points) sank a trifecta, which pulled the Hornets to within one point.

“We thought they were going to do a lot of zone, and they came out full court man, and they were in our faces, and we just didn’t handle it very well,” said Redding, when asked to describe Foxborough’s fast start.

The coach continued by saying, “[Foxborough] played great. They were running the floor well, and they took it to us, so we rallied back a little to get it even at the quarter, but it was a dog fight all night.”

Mansfield built off their momentum in the second quarter, but Foxborough answered with seven unanswered points, thanks to junior co-captain Ashley Snyder and sophomore Danielle Roma before the Hornets called a timeout.

The short break halted the Warriors offense, and allowed the Hornets to regain their original momentum and end the half with a 21-19 advantage. 

“We wanted to keep them below 10 points a quarter, so we had pretty much done that in the first few quarters, and so I was pretty happy with what I saw,” said Foxborough head coach Lisa Downs.      

Both the Hornets and Warriors kept things close throughout the third frame, but once the fourth quarter started, Mansfield’s offense exploded for 22 points, which secured the win, as well as their sixth conference victory, too.

“We just had that run where we couldn’t miss, and they couldn’t make a basket, but Lisa’s got them playing very hard, aggressive man, and we had our hands full,” said Redding. “[Thankfully] we started hitting some shots, and they got a little cold because this was a tough one, and this felt like a four or five point game all night.”   

Foxborough has now lost four of their last five contests, and will look to return to the winning ways on Friday when they travel to North Attleboro for a 6:30pm tip. As for Mansfield, they’ll look to build off their win on the same day when they host Sharon.  

“I saw some good things, but overall, I thought we just didn’t clean it up enough in that second half, and they played harder than we did,” said Downs.