Nashoba Girls’ Basketball collected their first postseason win on Thursday, February 28. The number-one seeded Chieftains defeated eighth-seeded Medfield at Nashoba Regional High School in the Central Mass. District Quarterfinals with a final score of 60-44.

Junior Abby McNulty led the way for Nashoba with twenty-five points, while junior Caylie McMahon added all of her twelve points in the second half. McNulty and McMahon combined for 32 points in the second half, powering the Chieftains’ comeback win.

Nashoba struggled offensively in the first half with just eight points in the first quarter and ten in the second. However, they held their own on the defensive end and were only down three points at halftime, despite having made just six shots from the floor. “The pressure of being the number one seed got to our heads a little bit in the beginning of the game,” noted Coach Tina Seabury. “We’re used to being the underdog, so having that pressure of being the number one seed- I don’t think the team is used to that.”

Senior captain Brie Donahue netted ten points and grabbed ten rebounds for the Chieftains, and her defensive stops greatly contributed to Nashoba’s 22-8 run in the third quarter. Julia Roth also contributed eleven points. Donahue said coming out of halftime, “We realized that if we wanted to keep our season going, we were going to have to pick it up… As the game went on we definitely realized that we were the better team and we stepped up to the plate.”

McNulty added that, “Our speed was a huge advantage for us… especially in the second half when we started to get out on transition, that was when we gained the lead.”

Nashoba finished their regular season with a record of seventeen wins and three losses, including a 7-1 record in league play. Their impressive record earned them the number one seed for the Central Mass. Division II playoffs, as well as a first-round playoff bye. After their quarter finals win, Nashoba faced fourth-seeded St. Peter Marian at Clark University on Monday, March 4. They won with a score of 54-33. “Our team has been preparing since day one for this and this has been our goal, to do well in playoffs, because last year we got out at Clark by one point” expressed McNulty.

The Chieftains will participate in the Central Mass. Division II District Finals on Saturday, March 9, at 10:00am. They will play Groton Dunstable in hopes of winning Nashoba’s first Central Mass. Championship since 2013. “Every single person on this team has something different to offer,” Coach Seabury acknowledged. “If we can continue through the playoffs with the underdog mentality that really no one expects us to win we’ll do fine moving forward.”