Putnam Valley Girls 2022-23

Putnam Valley 2022-23

If one had proposed to the Putnam Valley girls basketball team on the first day of the 2022-23 season: “would you be willing to accept an outcome where you not only make it back to Troy, but this year you win the semi-final game and make it to the championship and lose by ten points?”, would the team have accepted it? That would be a return to Troy and the final four in class B, an improvement on the 2021-22 season, which was the best in school history. They had lost two starters to graduation, including Amanda Orlando (who had an excellent freshman season playing for Manhattanville), so there were question marks. All in all, a loss in the state title game sounds like a satisfying outcome, a very successful campaign. Doesn’t sound like a bad deal in theory.

And yes 2022-23 was a very successful season for the Putnam Valley girls. They went 19-1 in the regular season, winning 16 of those game by 15 or more points. The other 3 victories were by 10 or more. So a regular season of almost total dominance, minus a single 8-point loss to John Jay Cross River. A regular season almost absent of adversity.

Eva Dechent, the most dominant class B player since Teisha Hyman, was massively unstoppable. She averaged around 30 points a game, seemingly on cruise control, and probably could’ve dropped forty a game if she wanted. At times, I wondered if she could’ve gone out there blindfolded and still put up 20 and 10.

Eva was so dominant that the most efficient approach in the regular season was simply give her the ball and let her create. It would’ve been less efficient to run a traditional offensive set, where everyone touches the ball and gets looks. Eva could get to the rim whenever she wanted.

The Putnam Valley offense in practice was often: 1. Play tough aggressive defense and get points in transition. 2. Give the ball to Eva and let her create. 3. Give the ball to Nai Torres and let her create. 4. Let Eva or Nai drive and either kick it out to Briana Foudy for a three ball, or hit one of their bigs, Jana or Simone, on the block. 5. Hit the glass for the offensive rebound and putback.

This approach got them to the brink of the state title. One does wonder if the team would’ve benefitted from a tougher schedule, playing the likes of Ursuline, Harrison, Magnus, Tappan Zee, and White Plains, as a little collective adversity might come in handy in the postseason. Certainly the 2021-22 PV team played a tougher schedule.

PV had a tough game against Ardsley in the Section One semi-final. Ardsley had a smart defensive scheme, basically covering 4 players man-to-man and then keeping a player in the paint to disrupt Eva. It was a great strategy; I was very impressed how the smaller Ardsley girls took it right at PV. Because you will never beat PV on your heels; you have to go at them if you have any hope of success. But PV took the punch and won the game. It was amazing to me that other teams didn’t try to replicate the Ardsely approach defensively, as they seemed to layout a potential blueprint for how to guard one of the top players in the state.

PV then breezed through the regionals but faced a major powerhouse in Albany Academy in the semi-final game. I had PV as ten-point underdogs going in. Albany Academy was frightening on film. They had a very skilled and deep roster—at least 8 girls who could seriously play. The kind of team that obviously recruited and should be paying the likes of Ursuline and Magnus. But Eva and Nai Torres were the best two players on the court and they knocked off a powerhouse.

In the championship game, it seemed PV was on their way to the state title. They were rolling, with a ten-point lead heading into the fourth. But the opposition turned up the heat: made it suddenly hard for the two stars to score and they hit some big, if unlikely, shots. And the 10-point lead slowly evaporated.

There’s nothing one can say that will take away the sting the Putnam Valley girls felt. They’d beaten a stronger team in terms of talent in the semi-finals. They’d come so close to holding that trophy.  That’s true, but also important to remember PV exceeded their expectations for the season and made it to Troy in successive years. On paper, it was the most successful PV girls team in history, though the 2019-20 team was most likely the best. They were one win from Troy when Covid unplugged everything. That 2020 team was a juggernaut would’ve like won the state title. (Their County Center battle with Irvington was an absolute war.) And the 2020-21 team was also very strong, but there were no state playoffs. Again because of Covid. This was the basketball machine. that Kristi Dini built and Don Hamlin drove the last two years.

Eva walked away with two trips to Troy in her 5 years (or was it 6) of varsity hoops. But without Covid it would’ve likely been 4 trips to Troy and at least one state title.