AUGUSTA — Brielle Hill raced down the Augusta Civic Center floor, cut to the basket and finished off an uncontested fastbreak layup with relative ease.
Then the Valley junior guard did it again. Then again. And, yes, again.
Hill and the top-seeded Valley girls basketball team sprinted past No. 8 North Haven 52-32 in a lopsided Class D South quarterfinal game Saturday morning.
Hill scored a game-high 24 points, with 12 coming off fastbreak layups in a dominant second quarter. Her younger sister Madeline Hill added 13 points.
“I got pretty tired, yeah,” said Brielle Hill on her dizzying layup barrage in the second quarter. “But this happens a lot. We’re really good at pushing the ball up the court.”
Valley (14-1) will play No. 4 Forest Hills (12-7) in a regional semifinal at 11:30 a.m., Thursday. The Tigers ousted No. 5 Greenville 35-25 in a quarterfinal game Saturday morning.
Mercedes Sparhawk scored 14 points to lead North Haven (4-7).
Valley coach Gordon Hartwell acknowledged his team was a little nervous coming into the Civic Center after not competing last season because of the coronavirus pandemic. It showed early as the Cavs struggled to get into a shooting rhythm.
“We had to get our legs under us,” he said. “We were a little tentative, a little nervous.”
Still, Valley jumped out to a 10-0 lead, led 13-4 after the first eight minutes and then put everything far out reach in the second quarter.
After North Haven’s Sparhawk scored to make it a 13-6 game, the Cavs went on a blistering 24-0 run to close the half.
North Haven’s Madeleine Lattimer (10) eyes the ball as she battles for the rebound with Valley’s Emily Collins (24) during a Class D South girls basketball quarterfinal game Saturday at the Augusta Civic Center. Michael G. Seamans/Morning Sentinel
Valley forced eight turnovers in that span and converted them all into points.
“We’re a running team,” Madeline Hill said. “It’s what we do.”
Added Hartwell, who sat most of his starters in the second half: “We certainly could’ve played better. We were tentative in the first quarter but in the second quarter you saw what we like do, what we want to do.”
Now, Valley shifts its attention on Forest Hills and the semifinals. The Cavs swept the season series, winning 79-46 and 49-34.
“If we don’t play well, we’re going home,” Hartwell said. “You don’t get do-overs here. And the more games you play, the louder the crowds get. the bigger the crowds get. We’ll have to be ready.”
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