Title-game appearance a long time coming for Roye, Hopkinton girls basketball

When the Hopkinton High School girls basketball team set foot on the court for Wednesday's Division III semifinal, it was the first time any member of the Hawks had been on that stage in over a decade.

And when No. 6 Hopkinton returns to the floor Saturday for the championship game against No. 5 Conant, it will be playing for its first girls basketball title since 2003.

But on the bench, the Hawks have a pair of coaches are perfectly familiar with the situation their players will be facing.

For coach Pat Roye, that experience came leading the Campbell boys basketball team in the early days of the program, helping the Cougars reach a couple of semifinals. For assistant coach Amy Ober, the experience was as a member of the Hawks' last championship team, the group that won the 2003 Class M title.

Over the course of this season, both have tried to pass those experiences down to their players.

"(Roye) talks about it all the time, what to expect and how to stay calm," Hopkinton senior Taylor Signor said. "He took Abby (Houston) and I aside and told us how to calm everybody down (before the semifinals). Our assistant coach, Amy Ober, was one of the last girls to make it here. She’s really helped us push. It’s been a long time and I think it’s well-earned."

It's been a thrill for Roye, who left Campbell after the 2011-12 season because he got a teaching job in Hopkinton. After a year assisting former boys coach Dave Chase, Roye moved over to fill a vacancy in the girls program. Roye coached the team for a year before a personal matter led to him taking a year off, but he's been back with the Hawks for the last two seasons.

"I’ve been coaching since I was 18 and this is as much fun coaching as I’ve ever had," he said. "They push each other, they work hard in practice, they let me prepare them for things like this.

"I couldn’t be prouder of these guys. A year ago, with pretty much the same team, we were 6-12 and missed the playoffs. We had great attendance (during the summer). It’s an old-fashioned team."

That was apparent in the first half of Wednesday's semifinal win over Gilford, as the Hawks spread the ball around, getting scoring, rebounding and defense from a handful of players. And then in the second half, Signor took over, scoring 14 of her game-high 17 points.

"When we’re in trouble, she makes the plays," Roye said. "The kids have all the confidence in the world in her. When we got in trouble, everybody looked for her. She’s such an advantage for us."

While the scoring ultimately win the game, Signor and her teammates know that there's more that goes into winning a game.

"We always talk about team before self, so all those rebounds and all those steals on defense, one play doesn’t ruin a basketball game, but all the little ones add up," she said. "We focus on each rebound, don’t foul and make your free throws."

Despite being the lower seed, Hopkinton enters the title game having beaten Conant twice during the regular season, 41-30 and 46-33. The Orioles are playing in the title game for the second year in a row and third time in the last four years.

"The dimensions of the hoop and the free throw line are the same," Signor said. "That’s what we walked in here thinking, yeah, it’s a big stage, but it’s just another basketball game. There are seven other billion people in the world who don’t really care about this. That’s kind of how we don’t get nervous."