Sports
Spartans Win Northern Region Championship
West Springfield claims its spot as the region's best girls basketball team
With just over a minute to play in the game, and the regional title at stake, the tournament’s MVP was brought her to her knees by the opposition. But the young woman with the appropriate surname of Battle kept on doing just that, dribbling away, from her knees, refusing to relinquish possession before she was fouled.
West Springfield junior and Georgetown-commit Logan Battle then hit both free throws to clinch the game and the Northern Region title for her team. The Spartans had a tough game, but ultimately outmatched the T.C. Williams squad, winning 46-41 on Monday night at Robinson High School in Fairfax.
After the buzzer sounded, the Spartans players looked to their orange-clad student section, which had provided rollicking support and encouragement all night and made a dash toward them. Some exchanged hugs with fellow students, while others just basked in the fuzzy afterglow of a hard-fought victory. After a nearly flawless 27-1 season, capped by both district and regional titles, this was finally a moment to soak up the love.
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Amidst the mayhem, Logan Battle’s broad smile stood out.
“I’m not sure how we’re going to celebrate,” she said, her voice rising above the din. “But I probably won’t sleep tonight.”
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After beating the Titans three times this season prior to the game, including the Patriot District championship, the Spartans entered the game as the prohibitive favorite. But the Titans came ready to play, and the Spartans coach Bill Gibson knew his team had to guard against overconfidence.
“I told them, ‘this game means more.’ We didn’t want to win Friday night only to lose tonight,” he said, as his players began to take turns cutting down the net. “We knew that this team knew us well and that it would be a tight game, we just had to keep playing through the mistakes.”
And in the early going of the game, it was very much about playing through mistakes for both teams, as nerves played a part in both teams scoring just seven points in the first quarter. In the second period, the Spartans began to take control as their trio of scorers, freshman forward Amy Berglund (13 points), junior guard April Robinson (19), and Logan Battle (11), started to loosen up and hit open shots.
But in the second half, Jasmine Norman, the Titans’ standout forward, started to take over the game, draining a fallaway to knot the score at 21 early in the third, and then banging home a layup off of her own miss just minutes later to give her team its first lead, 25-24.
Norman (21 points) was electric, but most of her teammates remained ice cold, as Robinson began to find space in the paint during an 11-4 run that staked the Spartans to an early fourth-quarter lead, 35-29. Tough defense and a myriad of turnovers kept the game close throughout the final period, and with just less than three minutes to play, Norman struck again, this time with a huge 3-pointer that reduced the deficit to 41-38.
But the Spartans worked the clock like maestros and the Titans would get no closer, as Battle and her teammates possessed the ball, and fended off a spirited attack until it was time to get their hands on the trophy.
For West Springfield the celebration was sweet, and although the players were happy to pose in front of a regional champs banner, no one was ready to declare “mission accomplished” just yet.
Berglund spoke of keeping focused on the goal of winning state. Battle believed that the team needed to step up its defense.
Five players from the two teams made the all-tournament team: Christian Roberts and Jasmine Norman from T.C. Williams, and Amy Berglund, April Robinson, and Logan Battle, who was the tournament MVP, for West Springfield.
