Somerset Canyons edged Lincoln Park Academy in a tight regional championship win on Friday night.
BOYNTON BEACH — Somerset Canyons girls basketball can breath a collective sigh of relief.
The Cougars defeated Lincoln Park Academy in the Class 3A regional championship but had to survive quite a scare to do so in a 47-46 win.
"I think at the end of the day, I think we did miss a lot of shots, missed a lot of opportunities," Somerset Canyons head coach Andrew McCutcheon said. "We shouldn't have turned the ball over, but I think overall Delanie Doty came through. Big AP, Alana Pinnock, came through big when we needed her, and I think we came together as a team and we got it done."
No one would blame them if there were a few nervous jitters expelled by the cheers in the post-game celebration.
The Greyhounds (21-6) gave Somerset Canyons (22-4) everything they could handle, building a four-point halftime lead that blossomed into a 10-point advantage in the third quarter.
When push came to shove, Somerset Canyons' Alana Pinnock and Delanie Doty shined, with the latter hitting a clutch go-ahead triple at the 1:27 mark of the game.
It was the final basket made by either team, setting the Cougars up with another opportunity in the state semifinals.
"I thought we came prepared," Lincoln Park Academy head coach Wendell Adams said. "We got a chance to look at them a lot on tape. We're familiar with the things that they did. We knew that they had the size advantage over us and I think that we controlled the game, pretty much for the first three quarters, and then in the fourth quarter our inexperience showed up a little bit."
"We played hard," Adams continued. "I thought we played well enough to win, but, you know, my hat's off to Somerset Canyons. You know, they've got a tough team, man, and we gave them everything that we had."
The Cougars, to this point, had been operating on cruise control in their playoff journey, outscoring their previous four playoff opponents 258-120.
The Greyhounds came out firing from beyond the arc, stunning the home crowd in the regional title game.
Equally as surprising was the Cougars' shooting struggles through the first three quarters, as shots just couldn't seem to find their mark.
In the absence of shots falling, the Cougars relied on their experience and superior speed to outplay the Greyhounds in the fourth quarter, forcing errors and dominating late rebounds to grit their way to what could be described as a character-building win ahead of a trip to Jacksonville for the state semifinals.
"I know we've been through this throughout the whole season," Alana Pinnock said. "Just close games and making sure that we stay tight, stay together. So I think this win, we kind of needed it to go into states because our last few games have kind of been a stretch of blowout games. So this close game coming back, I think it feels real good."
Last year, the Cougars made it to this point in the season despite having a very young team. They fell to Bolles in overtime, which ended an impressive season.
This year, the team is more experienced, if not still a bit young. But the message has been clear all season.
"We fell short last year, and I guess we're trying to go on our revenge tour this season," Pinnock said.
Alex Peterman is a high school sports reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Somerset Canyons girls basketball wins regional championship
Category: General Sports
