Charlie Breitrose
Junior Shannon Murphy and the Raiders will take on Belmont in the North Section final Saturday night.
A Watertown-Belmont matchup is always an emotional affair, but Saturday night’s girls basketball game between the rivals has huge implications. To the victor goes the North Section Championship trophy and a trip to the EMass finals at the TD Garden.
The North Section final has become a familiar place for the Raiders, who have reached the game for the fourth straight year. This will be Belmont’s first in recent memory. Most years, the section final is held at the Tsongas Center in Lowell, but with the arena unavailable the game will be played at Woburn High School at 7 p.m. Saturday.
The gym should be packed, with bus loads of students going, along with many fans to support their school and their town.
Watertown head coach Patrick Ferdinand said his senior class has been able to achieve a lot in their time at WHS.
“I am really proud of the seniors that we can get to this spot again,” Ferdinand said. “It has to do with the seniors of the program and the underclassmen who have really been pushing them and helping them get better.”
The Raiders look to junior center Shannon Murphy to lead the offense. She gets help from senior forwards Katelyn Rourke and Felicia Korte. Senior point guard Michaela Antonellis distributes the ball and senior guard Nicole Lanzo can score, too.
Watertown beat the Belmont 46-34 in the Marauders’ gym during the only meeting of the year. Ferdinand said he is not thinking about that result.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s 0-0,” Ferdinand said. “We don’t look at what happened before. We just look at some stuff that happened that game how we can fix it or go off it.”
The Marauders, under head coach Melissa Hart, are built on defense, and will use a mix of zone and man-to-man.
“Belmont, they have a lot of good basketball kids out there,” Ferdinand said. “The coach, Melissa, is extremely smart and they work really, really hard.”
The Marauders’ top scorers are the senior co-captains – center Sarah Stewart and Samari Winklaar. They have some young talent, too, including starting guards sophomore Carly Christofori and sophomore Jenny Call. Belmont will go deep into its bench.
Hart noted that the two teams know each other well. She said her team is building confidence, and has already beaten some of the top teams in the section, including second seed Newburyport and third seed Arlington Catholic.
“When team’s win a lot they expect it a little more. That’s how (Watertown) carries themselves,” Hart said. “And now our girls are starting to realize that they can carry themselves that way, too.”
The winner of Saturday’s game plays in the state semifinal, Tuesday at the TD Garden at 5:45 p.m. They will face the South Section Champ, either Hingham or Oliver Ames.
Follow the action from the Watertown-Belmont game on the Watertown News Twitter feed, @WatertownMANews.