Ford’s Shayra Brown lets a jumper fly. (Damion Reid)
A basketball was securely tucked under Vanessa D’Ambrosi’s left arm as she exited the Bishop Ford locker room. It had seemingly become a part of her over the last 24 hours.
“I slept with my ball last night,” the St. Anselm-bound guard said. “After school I was shooting until I got here.”
She didn’t stop there either. D’Ambrosi scored 20 points and connected on six 3-pointers, many at critical times, to lift Bishop Ford past Kellenberg, 51-46, in the CHSAA Class AA state girls basketball quarterfinals Friday night at Archbishop Molloy’s Jack Curran Gymnasium. The Firebirds made eight shots from behind the arc as a team, but D’Ambrosi’s final trey gave the Falcons the lead for good at 49-46 with 1:52 left.
“Once they hit one, I had to hit one back,” she said.
Shayra Brown scored 10 points, Brittany Lewis had eight and Diani Mason added seven for the Falcons (21-5), who were playing in honor of longtime assistant coach Mary Gillespie. She was home resting after suffering a heart arrhythmia earlier this week. Katie Cunningham dropped in 14 points and hit four 3-pointers, Khadijah Donaldson scored 12 and Marist-bound forward Emma O’Connor, who was guarded by Brown, tallied just eight for Kellenberg (16-6).
After D’Ambrosi’s final 3-pointer, O’Connor missed two free throws with 40.7 second left and Cunningham couldn’t get a layup to fall before Lewis made two free throws with 19.7 seconds remaining to seal it.
“You got to give Kellenberg credit,” Ford coach Mike Toro said. “They were hitting big shots when they needed big shots. In the last two minutes we found a way to make big plays.”
The Falcons led 29-17 with less than three minutes gone by in the second half as D’Ambrosi scored eight straight points over the second and third quarters. Kellenberg responded with a 9-0 run. It finished the quarter with two straight Cunningham 3-pointers and tied the score at 34 on an O’Connor basket with 7:23 left in the game.
“We were playing 100 miles per hour back and forth, back and forth,” Mason said. “We needed to go fast, but slow it down and take our time.”
Mason then went on a personal, 5-0 run, but Cunningham hit a trey, Alison Knepple hit her second trey around a D’Ambrosi 3-pointer and a Brown putback in traffic. O’Connor made 1-of-2 free throws to tie the score at 46 with 2:00 remaining, before D’Ambrosi, who told her team they were not losing before the fourth quarter, responded with a long 3 from the left side.
“There are times where they have to remember that there is just the look that she gives you,” Toro said. “When she gives you that look she wants the ball. The whole team can be on her. She is still going to hit that shot. It’s good for us if she has that face the whole states.”
Added D’Ambrosi: “I didn’t want this to be my last game.”
The Falcons may need another big performance from their senior. Toro knows his team will need to play better when they get a rematch with St. Michael Academy and his mentor Apache Paschall at 5 p.m. Saturday in the semifinals at Christ the King. Ford beat the defending New York State Federation Class AA champion 48-45 in January and Toro believes it was just a precursor for what is to come.
“I sat in my office this morning and I read a line [from Paschall] that was in the paper in the beginning of the year that said, ;We are going to do it again. That’s what God intended,’” Toro said. “For me when we beat St. Michael’s in the regular season they thought it was a fluke. So for us, tomorrow we are going to do it again because that’s what God intended.”