Byram Hills Drops a Home Game Against the Pelicans

The Byram Hills girls’ basketball team knew that stopping Pelham’s all-section junior, Samantha Volpe, might be the key to winning Friday afternoon’s game against the Pelicans.

For one quarter, at least, the Bobcats managed to do it.

But Volpe erupted for 19 points after halftime and finished with a game-high 28 as Pelham defeated the host Bobcats 49-31. The Pelicans closed the contest with a 12-2 spurt to thwart a Byram comeback bid and send the Bobcats, currently 7-6, to their fifth loss in the last six games.

“Yeah, she’s a difference maker,” said Bobcats head coach Tara Ryan after watching Volpe’s second-half exploits against her team. “She’s a definite big presence down in the post.”

Even though Volpe wound up scoring six points in the second quarter, Byram Hills found itself trailing by just 21-14 at intermission. A pair of 3-pointers by freshman guard Gabby Ripka had enabled the Bobcats to move within 15-14 with two minutes left before Volpe closed the half with a conventional 3-point play and then a 3-point shot from the left elbow.

When play resumed after the break, Volpe triggered a 12-3 Pelham burst by connecting on a 3-pointer from the top of the key 90 seconds into the third quarter. The Bobcats managed just two baskets in the period — a 15-foot turnaround jumper by Maggie Walsh with 6:12 remaining and Sophia Villani’s 3-pointer from the left corner with 1:38 to go — and trailed 35-20 heading to the fourth.

“Our team just needs to get better at coming out for the second half,” said Ryan. “It’s something we have to work on, mentally, as we grow and we get older. Hopefully, by the end of the season, we can start playing four quarters instead of two, or three-and-a-half quarters.”

The fourth quarter began with Olivia Picca, another Bobcat freshman, scoring on a baseline drive. But, moments later, she turned her left ankle near midcourt and was forced to watch the rest of the game from the bench. Pelham soon built its lead back up to 15 points with a bucket in the lane from Volpe before Byram Hills, showing some resiliency, went on a 7-0 spurt to climb within 37-29 with four and a half minutes left on the clock.

The Bobcats’ fourth-quarter burst was started by Walsh, who drilled a 17-footer with 6:12 remaining. Just 50 seconds later, Walsh made a pair of free throws. Then with 4:32 left, Jennifer Mui, yet another freshman guard for Byram Hills, dropped in a 3-point shot from the left elbow that sliced the Pelicans’ lead to 37-29.

Unfortunately for the Bobcats, Pelham proceeded to score the game’s next 12 points, all but sealing the outcome on Volpe’s trey from the left corner with 3:46 to go. Just over a minute later, the southpaw Volpe added her final points of the day, scoring on a righty flip in the lane while getting fouled. Her free throw rolled in, giving the Pelicans’ a 20-point advantage.

“We began to rush our shots quite a bit right at the end,” said Ryan, whose team went scoreless for nearly three minutes until Mui made two foul shots with 1:34 left. “It comes with a bit of youth on the court. But that’s our growing pains. We’re gonna be going through that the whole year. We can’t go so fast that we’re shooting the shot in the first eight seconds. We’ve got to make the defense work and find the openings and get the ball to the people that need it at the end of the game.”

Ryan, in her first season at the Byram Hills helm, has taken over a team with a lot of youth, but not much size. The former star at Hastings High School knows that turning the Bobcats into contenders won’t happen overnight.

“It’s getting them out of that mind frame from the past that we’re down, we quit, we give up,” she said. “This team is definitely fighting to find their identity. We have some players on this team and once we just get used to each other, get used to the system that I want to run, I think we’ll be much more successful.”

Andy Jacobs

Andy is a sports editor at Examiner Media, covering seven high schools in the mid-Westchester region with a notebook and camera. He began there in the fall of 2007 following 15 years as a candid photographer for the largest school picture company in the tri-state area.

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