Harrity, Grant show signs of greatness
Every day at school, Grant senior center Mallory Harrity gets a friendly reminder about what she needs to do in her next basketball game.
"I tell Mallory every day in (food) class that she needs to go out and drop 50 (points) on someone," said senior Evan Viscioni, a reserve guard on the boys basketball team at Grant.
"He's my hype man," Harrity said of Viscioni, one part basketball player, the other part personal motivator.
On Monday with Lakes visiting Grant, Viscioni wanted to make sure that Harrity didn't forget about his expectations for her. So he made a sign that reminded his friend "Malz" to go out and get 50. He and fellow boys basketball player Tavarus Williams held the sign throughout the game.
Harrity didn't get 50, but she got nearly half of that in dominating the paint to lead Grant to a 55-46 Northern Lake County Conference victory over Lakes.
Harrity pumped in a game-high 23 points (one shy of her season-high of 24 points) while pulling down 11 rebounds. Even with a 6-footer and three other players 5-foot-10 or taller on the roster, Lakes was not able to even slow down the 6-foot-1 Harrity.
"I'm always confident when I'm passing it into Mallory," said Grant junior guard Ally Mahinay, who finished with 14 points for the Bulldogs and was responsible for leading Harrity to the basket with some beautiful passes that quickly turned into assists. "I don't know what I'm going to do without (Harrity) next season. I've been playing with her all through high school. To not have her is going to be weird.
"I think Mallory is the best big girl in the conference. No one can stop Mal."
Harrity got Grant off to a fast start, scoring 17 of her 23 points in the first half. She helped the Bulldogs break open an 11-11 tie at the end of the first quarter by scoring 9 straight points midway through the second quarter. Overall she scored 11 points in the period and Grant took a commanding 34-18 lead into the locker room at halftime.
"Mallory is (a handful)," said Lakes junior center Mia Edwards, who was often responsible for guarding Harrity. "For someone so big like that, it has to be a team effort. Someone needed to front her and someone had to be behind to help. Our goal was to lock her down but she played well tonight. She's a great player and I respect her for that.
"She got a lot of rebounds and putbacks. She's a good player."
Grant went up by as many as 17 points early in the fourth quarter, but then Lakes went on a run of its own and chipped away at its deficit.
The Eagles scored 8 straight points to cut Grant's lead to single digits, and ultimately they got the deficit to as few as 8 points. But Grant hit free throws down the stretch to ice the win.
"I'm just happy with our effort tonight," Lakes coach Brian Phelan said. "We battled every possession. We just missed some shots and that's deflating and frustrating. You work hard and you do all the right things and then you miss shots. But we kept battling and that was a good thing."
Lakes got a team-high 10 points out of Brittany Washington, 9 points from Edwards and 8 points each from Sara Smith and Kylie Jozwik.
Grant has now won 2 important games in a row, with the Lakes win coming about a week after a revenge win over Marian Central Catholic, which handed the Bulldogs a big loss over the holidays.
"I think we have a good streak going," Mahinay said. "I think we're playing well with one another and we know how to pace our game for certain situations."
"We're definitely regional- and sectional-ready," Harrity said.