BY: DYLAN O’LOUGHLIN
After two straight years of heartbreak, Tournament MVP sophomore guard Lucy Bush led all scorers with 25 points including 15 in the first half to lead Pittsford Sutherland to victory in the Section V Class A final over No. 6 Newark 61-45. Up one coming out of the locker room, fellow sophomore Petra Hunt poured in 12 of her 23 points in the third as the Knights outscored Newark 26-8 to pull away with the title.
“They’re really good and even better kids. They’re so fun to be with, they work really hard and they’re just great teammates,” Pittsford Sutherland head coach Daniel Judd said. “I can’t say enough about them and obviously they’re really talented. I felt Lucy really got us going today when we were struggling to score together. We were struggling to score, getting to the basket and we weren’t making jump shots, but Lucy kept us going and kept us in it.”
Down 17-8 at the end of the first, the Knights needed a spark. The spark came from an unprecedented timeout as Newark senior guard and 13 PPG scorer TaKyla Vaughn went down with an injury at the start of the second that kept the senior out the rest of the period. At the time, Vaughn had poured in nine of the Reds’ 21 points to lead the way.
Coming out of the timeout, Sutherland was down eight. That’s when Bush took advantage and recorded 10 points in the frame alone. Along with great defense causing multiple Newark turnovers, the sophomore ignited a 14-2 run to end the quarter and take a 28-27 lead.
“We just wanted to come out strong,” Bush said. ” We expected the physicality because they (Newark) wanted it just as much as us. We just had to keep it going and play team basketball. We really tried to emphasize on not being either defensively or offensively motivated. We just wanted to play our best defense because that translates into our offense.”
In the third quarter, Hunt took over. The sophomore knocked down four of her six triples to lead all scorers in the frame. The scoring became contagious as four fellow Knights put points on the board after the defensive pressure applied from the half-court press caused many more scoring opportunities. Sutherland held Newark to just three makes from the field in the eight minutes to open up a 19-point lead heading into the fourth.
“My team does a great job of getting me open as always,” Hunt said. “They make good passes to me and honestly I got to make my threes if my teammates can get me open.”
In the fourth quarter, the game was too far out of reach to mount a Newark comeback. The Reds won the quarter 8-7, but Sutherland still got the victory for its fourth sectional title in program history and first since 2014. The Knights got it done after falling in the sectional finals in 2023 and 2024, but Sutherland knows its on to the next.
“It feels kind of unreal, we worked so hard for this over the past few years,” Bush said. “But, we’re going to come ready to compete against whoever wins these upcoming games.”
Hunt and Bush combined for 48 of Sutherland’s 61 points while going a combined 6-for-7 from the charity stripe. To go along with the sophomore duo, Madison Littlefield put up five of her six points in the third quarter while Taylor Hamilton connected on a triple and a deuce for five points. Mackenzie Dermody also tallied two points.
For Newark, Vaughn led the way with 13 points while Karina Natale followed with 11 including six in the second quarter. Naomi Jones scored six points from downtown while Arizona Chapple added five. Malia Brown and Martianna Chance recorded four points each while Sohpia Delfs rounded out the scoring with two points.
Pittsford Sutherland moves on to the Class A state quarterfinals to take on the Class A Section VI champs. Game is scheduled for Saturday, March 15 with a noon tip-off at a neutral site.
Class A All-Tournament Team:
MVP: Lucy Bush (Sutherland)
Aaliuiah Green (East Irondequoit)
Darianna Williams (East)
Madison Littlefield (Sutherland)
Karina Natale (Newark)
Petra Hunt (Sutherland)
TaKyla Vaughn (Newark)
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