The LoHud Girls Basketball Blog

Brittni Lai:

On team’s resilience: “I have to give that to Lauren. I think she put the spark back into us. After she hit two three’s and hit the layup, she just got us all pumped up. Even when we lost to Ossining, Ms. Maher said the one thing we did do was never back down. It’s never over. Just like last year when we thought it was over, but it wasn’t, and it just showed today that we are very resilient.”

On Marley Giddins winning Federation tournament MVP award: “She’s unbelievable and it’s going to be tough next year without her. She’s great and she deserved it.”

Marley Giddins:

On being a senior and winning Federation title: “I could not be happier. It’s an amazing way to end the season and it’s an amazing way to end my career. This was just incredible. I don’t know what to say, it was amazing.”

On the big contribution from Lauren Chafizadeh: “She was amazing today. “I was in awe of her. She’s such a clutch player. She really showed that today and she hit some huge three’s and hit some huge foul shots. She really showed what she’s capable of and it also just shows that it’s not just the Big Three and it’s not even just the starters, it takes everyone on our team.”

On the future of the program: “I think the future is great. You still have Brittni and Lexi, Ryan, Alyssa, Lauren and everyone on the bench. I think they will be a really great team and I can’t wait to come back and watch them play and win another state and federation championship.”

Head coach Gina Maher:

On win: “To come back twice is unbelievable. It’s amazing. We didn’t play well yesterday and got it out of our system. I just think that they wanted ti so bad. We were down twice. Once by 12 and the other by 14. … Obviously Lauren was great off the bench, but I think the other kids did a great job too. I thought Ryan McMahon played great defense and my Big Three did their big three things. We stayed focus and didn’t lose our composure and just played hard.”

On performance at the half: “I said look guys we were way, way down. I said we are down by five and we can do this. It is very important to do well in the third quarter. And we did for a while, but then didn’t again. But then they came back again, and every time they came back, I just kept saying to keep doing what you’re doing and keep playing hard.”

On senior Marley’s MVP award: “I get very emotional about Marley. She played for me for five years and it’s her last game and for her to go out the way she went out, it’s so well deserved. She’s never been the MVP before and for her to get it in the Federation in the last game was awesome. She’s a great kid and I love her.”

On overall season: “The season was great. I think that people expected us to do a lot of things. I think that people sometimes didn’t appreciate how hard they worked, but I think after today they proved that we do work hard. We had to play well to beat all of the teams that we beat this season. They were all good teams and we had to work hard to beat them. And to beat a team like Long Island Lutheran, they are awesome and play really, really good basketball. There’s not one bad player on their team. It’s just a nice finish.”