Season Ends for Girls in NEPSAC Tourney Loss

They say all good things must end, and so it was for Harvey’s girls varsity basketball team whose history-making 22-win season ended Wednesday, March 1 with a 63-48 loss to the Millbrook School Mustangs in the quarterfinal round of the NEPSAC Championship Tournament.

The Harvey girls, who just last Saturday captured the championship of the Housatonic Valley Athletic League, concluded their marvelous season on a bit of a sour note, ending a winning streak of 12 straight games during which they became the first Harvey basketball team to record 20 wins in a single season.

You had a sense it was not going to be the No. 3 seed Harvey’s day when the girls uncharacteristically fell behind from the start. The No. 6 seed Mustangs jumped out to a 6-0 lead. The Cavs fought to score some points and wipe out Millbrook’s early lead but the closest they got in the first half was a three-point deficit twice, once at 05:19 in the first quarter and the other with just 41 seconds left in the opening quarter. Millbrook led 14-9 at the end of the first quarter.

As the second quarter started, Millbrook's girls hit their shots, but the Cavs missed several of theirs, a theme that would continue throughout the game. The Mustangs would go on a 9-0 run before Harvey scored again.

When the Cavs continued to miss on their shot attempts, Millbrook took advantage and went on an 11-0 run within the final three minutes of the second quarter. At halftime, Harvey was down 38-17. Shooting guard McKensi Forde, the junior captain and  NEPSAC All-Star, had 12 of Harvey first-half total of 17 points and would finish with a team-high 26 points by game's end.

Midway through the third quarter, with Harvey down by 21, Forde was again leading Harvey’s offensive effort and was joined by her ninth grade sister Peyton as the siblings combined to score 15 of the team’s 19 points to trim Millbrook’s lead over the Cavs to 15.. Peyton would go on to tally 11 points in the game. The Mustangs led 50-35 after three quarters.

While McKensi Forde continued to have the hot hand for Harvey in the fourth quarter, her teammates struggled to find the shooting range. Shot after shot seemed to either hit the rim and bounce away, bank off the backboard, or in a few cases miss both rim and backboard altogether. "None of our shots were going in and we were struggling to move the ball," lamented Harvey coach Victoria Shopovick who gave credit to Millbrook's defense for limiting Harvey senior captain and NEPSAC All-Star Kira Ortega to just eight points. As much as the Cavs hustled to try to stop Millbrook and put themselves in position to score, it was just not their day on offense. Coach Shopovick said the Cas' defense came up short, too. "Our defense was good at times, but it definitely could have been better," the coach said.

The girls finish the season with a 22-3 overall record. The loss in the NEPSAC tournament in no way tarnishes their season as they go down in school history not only as the first team to win 20 games but also as the first girls team to win a Housatonic league championship. (The three Harvey girls teams of 2004-2006 under coach Chris Kelly had won championships in the old Hudson Valley Athletic League before it split into the Housatonic league.)  Reflecting on this championship season, Coach, Shopovick said,  "It's hard to see it come to an end, but the girls played a great season, walking away with records and an HVAL championship. I couldn't be prouder with this group of girls."

Harvey's 2022-23 girls varsity basketball team has the trophy as proof of its monumental accomplishment, and soon the team’s championship banner will hang in the Fenstermacher Athletic Center for all to see for years and years to come. .