Varsity Girls Basketball Stages Epic Comeback

The Masters School's varsity girls basketball squad kicked off its New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS) title defense with a bang on Wednesday, December 11, at the Fonseca Center.

* Click here to view a photo gallery from the game *


The Panthers roared back from a 27-5 first-quarter deficit to stun visiting Columbia Prep, 64-57, behind a monster evening from Brooke Tatarian '21. The junior star stuffed the stat sheet with 22 points, 21 rebounds and five assists.
 
"It was the first game after losing a lot of really important seniors to graduation in Kendra Cooper-Smith ’19 and Emily Briante ’19," Tatarian said. "They did a lot of the dirty work rebounding and they played under the basket. We knew we had a rough start today. We were turning over the ball and making silly passes, not getting into the right spots and we were all really frazzled."
 
According to Tatarian, coach Nick Volchok helped the squad settle down after the initial hiccup, delivering some words of encouragement. 
 
"Coach told us, 'OK, don't look at the score. It's 0-0. We have to start from the beginning. We are going to come back and we are going to go on a run,'" Tatarian said.
 
Masters was utterly dominant in the second quarter, outscoring Columbia Prep 22-0 to make it 27-27 at the half. 
 
"We started rebounding and pushing the ball up the court and not settling and waiting for a half-court offense," Tatarian said of the torrid comeback. "We really pushed the tempo and found their weak spots. That's the adjustment that we made."
 
Tatarian poured in 13 points during the second-quarter awakening and capped it off with a layup as time expired. While all the points were certainly impressive, Tatarian's all-around performance was even more noteworthy. 
 
"Last season, I had a really good scoring year with a lot of accomplishments," said Tatarian, who was named all-state in 2018. "Yes, I'm proud of that, but my goal after that season was to become a more well-rounded player — not just scoring 20 or 30 points a game. I wanted to contribute in all different ways. Without having a real center (this year), I really wanted to increase my assists and rebounds. I wanted to be able to do more things on the court, so I was definitely working on my strength and physicality." 
 
Allie Koziarz ’21 and Dakota Daniello ’23 rounded out the offensive production for Masters with 16 points and 14 points, respectively. 
 
The Panthers followed up the performance with a convincing 63-28 win over Notre Dame Academy in the opening round of the Léman Prep Holiday Tournament on Thursday, December 12. Tatarian had another big game with 24 points and 15 rebounds. Gwenn Sabato ’20 added 15 points and 10 rebounds and Noemia Massingue ’20 totaled eight points, nine rebounds and six steals. Masters will square off against Rye Country Day School in the final on Saturday, December 14 at 3:00 p.m. Léman is offering a livestream of the game that can be viewed at this link.

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