The second quarter did the damage.

The Middletown Middies outscored the Valley Central Vikings by 10 points in the second quarter on their way to a 60-43 victory to win their third straight Corinne Feller Memorial girls’ basketball tournament championship on Friday at Valley Central High School in Montgomery.
Middletown freshman Ashley MacCalla scored a game-high 27 points and was named the tournament MVP for the third straight season.

“(They played) excellent,” said Valley Central assistant coach James Gould, coaching the team for coach Bill Michella, who had to miss the game. “We knew we had to stop (MacCalla) in transition but she’s a great player.”

The Vikings kept pace with the Middies in the first quarter, trailing by two points after the first, but a 13-3 second quarter gave the Middies a 25-13 lead.

MacCalla got the Middies rolling in the second quarter hitting a layup and then two fouls shots to spark an 11-0 run.

The Vikings were shut out for about the first 5 minutes of the quarter until Breonna Curtis Wright knocked down a 3-pointer.

It was the only points the Vikings scored in the quarter.

“That’s not the game in the end, but you look at that quarter and their defense when they went from man to zone and we didn’t hit our shots,” Gould said. “We had open looks, but we didn’t make them.”

MacCalla did most of her damage in the third quarter scoring 10 of Middletown’s 16 points.

Maggie Bishopp led the Vikings with a team-high 15 points, outdueling MacCalla in the quarter with 12 of the Vikings’ 16 points.

Kelly Schmidt scored nine points.

Bishopp and Schmidt were named to the all-tournament team. Bishopp also scored a game-high 13 points in the Vikings’ opening round win over the Washingtonville Wizards on Wednesday.

“Kelly did a great job on Ashley,” Gould said. “It was team defense, but she did a good job keeping the team together. Maggie was a beast in the third quarter.”

Middletown’s Sydney MacCalla was named to the all-tournament team.

The John S. Burke Catholic Eagles outlasted the Wizards, 49-42, in overtime to win the consolation game.

Burke’s Liv Harrison and Washingtonville’s Kathryn Argenzio were named to the all-tournament team. Harrison scored a team-high 17 points, and Argenzio scored a game-high 23.

The Vikings opened the tournament with a 44-26 win over the Wizards.

Jenna O’Connor, Corinne Feller’s niece, scored 12 points, and Giselle Johnson added 10.

It was the Vikings’ first appearance in the finals since they won the tournament in 2019.

“I can’t speak highly enough about the way they did,” Gould said. “I think the score doesn’t indicate how close it was.”

Feller died of ovarian cancer at the age of 18 in 1999, and her number (11) was retired on December 3, 2004. She scored 533 points, had 227 assists, 213 steals and 179 rebounds for the Vikings.