Saugus racks up another postseason season win, handling Auburn

By Dom Nicastro

The Saugus High School girls basketball team opened its Division 3 MIAA state tourney with a 59-25 win over Auburn on Tuesday night, Feb. 15, at Saugus High School. Saugus junior captain Peyton DiBiasio led all scorers with 29 points, and the Sachems forced 32 turnovers. The Sachems, 14-7 and ranked No. 25 in the 42-team single-elimination tourney, will now move on and face No. 9 East Bridgewater (16-4) on the road Thursday, Feb. 27 at 6 p.m. Saugus won a postseason game for the second year in a row, a feat certainly not done in recent memory if not ever.

The team was playing two weeks to the day its Head Coach, Joe Lowe, took a personal leave with three games left in the regular season. Program alums and assistants Norma Waggett and Taylor Bogdanski took over the team as co-coaches.

“I think our big thing going in facing all this adversity was we needed to stick together, and no matter what happened, we just need to keep playing for each other and just overall play as hard as we can,” DiBiasio said. “We only have a few more games left. We’re trying to make it as far as we can in the tournament.”

Saugus senior captain Taylor Deleidi added 15 points and hit a trio of three-pointers. The first two came in the second quarter as part of a 27-3 Sachems run that spanned the first two quarters and gave the hosts a 33-9 lead at halftime.

“Obviously, Peyton is double-teamed sometimes, so it’s great to have other people on the floor who can score and she happens to be one of them,” Coach Bogdanski said of Deleidi. “And she always knocks down threes for us at great times.”

Saugus’ full-court pressure and halfcourt defense kept Auburn out of rhythm for the first half and forced the visitors into 23 turnovers after two quarters. The visiting Rockets (No. 40, 12-9) made only two field goals in the opening half, none in the second quarter. Taylor Goodrich’s three-pointer three minutes into the game gave Auburn a 6-4 lead – its last edge of the night. Goodrich led Auburn with 11 points.

“Our best way to score is transition offense, not even running a set, getting them tired early and then being able to push the ball like we were able to in the second half,” said Waggett, Saugus’ second all-time leading scorer behind DiBiasio, her junior point guard.

Senior captain Madison Botta, one of the architects of Saugus’ stifling defense, said the Sachems’ hustle on defense and efforts on the offensive glass that created second chances were the keys to the game. Deleidi agreed, saying Saugus knew it had to play hard, hustle and pressure the visitors the whole game.

“We just had to play for each other because we get in our heads a lot,” senior captain Ella Castle said. “We hustled the whole game and we didn’t give up.”

DiBiasio led all scorers with 18 first-half points on seven-for-15 shooting. She shot 11-for-26 in the game. Deleidi added eight first-half points for Saugus.

Auburn only had three second-quarter points on three free throws from Goodrich. The Rockets missed all eight of their shots and shot two-for-16 in the first half. Saugus shot 13-for-37 in the opening 16 minutes (three-for-13 from downtown). The Sachems were 6-for-27 from three-point land.