BRUNSWICK—Perry senior Madyson Hacking needed 27 points to reach the 1,000-point milestone so she went out and scored 28 on Saturday to lead the Pirates to a 70-51 nonconference win at Brunswick.
“It’s so exciting,” Hacking said. “It was four years in the making, from my very first game until now. It’s every little point you know, little baskets and big baskets, all came up to this 1,000. It’s so exciting.”
Hacking reached that 1,000-point milestone the same way she did with so many of her other recorded points.
She created the scoring opportunity through an aggressive defensive play that led to a steal and a nearly full-court layup.
“One of the things too that I’m so proud of her about is, for one, she deserved to get to this 1,000-point mark but, two, she didn’t try to force anything,” said Perry head coach Roy Infalvi. “She played her game. She’s a monster on the defensive end and she gets offensive rebounds and put-backs. Those are those extra hustle plays that get us going and she does that every time she’s on the court. It’s special, too, when you have an offensive player who scores that much but also does it on the defensive end.”
Perry led just 30-29 at halftime.
Hacking scored 10 of the Pirates’ points but Brunswick was served well by freshman Journey Hildebrand, who also scored 10 points in the first half.
The Pirates, who improved to 3-0 on the year, didn’t have much time to prepare for the Blue Devils nor Hildebrand, which contributed to the back and forth game in the first half.
“We picked them up on Tuesday, so it was a quick turnaround,” Infalvi said. “She’s a special player, Hildebrand. We knew she was going to give us issues and she did. She did a good job creating fouls and finishing at the basket. She’s going to be good for a while. It was good coming out here and playing a team we don’t normally get to play.”
The Pirates cleaned up some of their first issues and made adjustments on defense to prevent the Blue Devils from getting the same looks in the second half.
“They were doing a good job against our press in the first half to get through it and we weren’t doing a good job containing them, especially No. 12, their point guard,” Infalvi said. “They were getting free kick-outs for 3s. They’re a big 3-point shooting team and they hit some. We weren’t very good defensively. At halftime, we adjusted what we were doing defensively. We played a little bit of zone press and played a little bit in the half-court and I thought that made a difference.”
Perry outscored Brunswick in the second half, 40-22.
That scoring spree was led in part by Perry’s ability to score off the turnovers created on the defensive end of the court.
“One of the things we talked about a lot and we talk about at practice is sometimes offense isn’t going to go well but we can control that with our defense,” Infalvi said. “If our defense is going well, our offense is going to follow because we’re going to get transition and we’re going to pick up that energy. I thought we did that in the second half.”
While Hacking did most of the damage on the offensive end, the Pirates were well-balanced as a total of nine players found the basket.
Elle Infalvi finished with 10 points, Sophia Makad added eight and Margaux Jean and Marcela Rodriguez both scored six. Izzy McKoon added four points, Rylee Hodge and Gigi Vicini both scored three and Maddy Lambdin pitched in with two.
“Offensively, Sophia Makad had a couple of big shots in the second half and some deflections and steals,” Coach Infalvi said. “Gigi played really well today too. She got in foul trouble early on but then did some good things on the defensive end and movement offensively. As a whole, we played good team defense in the second half. I was happy about that.”
