Gabby Murphy got off to a slow start.

She only had five points through the first half and the Marlboro girls’ basketball team was leading the Highland Huskies by six points.

Then she caught fire, scoring 16 of her game-high 26 points in the third quarter as the Dukes put up 28 points and beat the Highland Huskies, 63-51, on Friday at Highland High School.

“It’s feeling really good, but I have to give a lot of the credit to my teammates,” Murphy said. “I know I had a lot of frustration in the first half, but they understood that, and they were able to get me the ball and knew I was on fire.”

There was a lot of frustration in the first half as the Dukes found themselves in early foul trouble and built a 20-12 lead early in the second quarter.

However, the Huskies came back to tie the game at 20 before Marlboro pulled ahead to take a 26-20 lead at halftime.

The Dukes knew they needed a change in the second half.

“We mainly discussed setting screens to get me open,” Murphy said. “But at the same time if a lot of the focus can be on me, we wanted to make sure to look for people screen so they could get the baskets, which I think a lot of people did.”

Marlboro’s third-quarter 3-point barrage started immediately in the third quarter, and it didn’t start with Murphy.

Emma Stoebling hit the first win, extending Marlboro’s lead to nine points, and Murphy drove the paint for two to give the Dukes a 31-20 lead. Then with 4:41 to go in the third quarter, Murphy hit a putback starting an 18-0 run. She hit four 3-pointers in that stretch.
Suddenly, the Dukes led, 54-24.

“I looked at the score and we were down by a few, and I was like, ‘it didn’t feel like that,’” Highland coach Michael Geller said. “But what I liked was that the girls didn’t give up and they kept plugging away and just chipping away at the lead.”

The chipping started immediately as Grace Koehler converted a three-point play, and Highland’s Logan VanZandt and Ciara Teamer each hit a free throw to send the game into the fourth quarter with the Dukes leading, 54-29.

“This is the first time we’ve seen a box-and-one, and obviously, this is not going to be the last time,” Marlboro coach Matt Murphy said. “That being said, I told all these girls, everyone’s got a green light to shoot.”

For as much as the Dukes owned the third quarter, the fourth belonged to the Huskies as they outscored the Dukes, 22-9, but couldn’t close to within less than 12 points.

And even when it was a 30-point game, it was played with the intensity of a five-point game.

“Marlboro is a great rivalry with Highland,” Geller said.

“That’s why I make sure we always get them on our schedule. The fans like it. The kids like it. The coaches like it. It will prepare us for the season. My girls played so tough. The energy was there; the heart was there.”

The loss put the Huskies at 1-1 on the season. They torched New Paltz, 60-17, on December 5. It was the second win of the year for the Dukes, who opened the season on Wednesday with a 66-27 win over Spackenkill.

“I feel very good with our progress,” Murphy said. “I know all of us are very hungry to get the section championship this year. I know we want it and have a really good feeling about this year. As long as we keep improving, I think we can get to where we want to be.”