SPRINGFIELD – Hoosac Valley girls basketball punched its ticket to a seventh state final in the past eight years Tuesday with a 42-38 win over Central Massachusetts champion Millbury at Western New England University.

With the win, Hoosac will face the winner of St. Mary’s and Rockland with a time, date and location to be determined.

With just 20 seconds left and a three-point lead, Sarah Fields jumped up with her arm extended to block a last-ditch shot from the Woolies to clinch it.

“When I was younger, I would never think that I’d be playing at the Cage as a Hurricane and winning the state finals last year and coming back to the finals this year,” Field said “It’s just a dream come true for me, especially getting the block and sealing the game.”

The first quarter looked reminiscent of their 45-28 loss against Millbury when they squared off earlier in the regular season.

Kelsey Reno drained two 3-pointers while the Hurricanes were forced to make difficult shots. Before long, Hoosac was down 16-5.

“They (Millbury) shot the ball really well, I just thought defensively, we really wanted to pressure them as much as we can,” Hurricanes coach Ron Wojcik said. “They didn’t have time on their shots and passes, and I didn’t know whether it was their nerves or whatever, and credit to them, they shot the ball well.”

Hoosac lit a spark in the second quarter.

After an immediate 3-point shot from Woolies’ Kayla Turner to start the second quarter, the Hurricanes finished out the half with a seven-point run. It started with a full-court press that resulted in a forced turnover and subsequent field goal on the inside.

Less than a minute later, Annie Canales made a steal and ran down the length of the court for an easy layup. Three foul shots by Averie McGrath later, Hoosac was right back in contention.

“We got up in people’s faces – they had a couple of turnovers, but also, they weren’t getting the clean looks on the shot,” Wojcik said. “Now everything is rushed a little bit, and I thought we did a great job boxing out, I mean, you have to with a big team like that.”

The Hurricanes’ offensive production kicked off in the third quarter by attacking the perimeter, illustrated by Field draining a 3-point shot on the right corner and McGrath following up with one of her own on the opposite end on the next possession.

With that, Hoosac found its first lead on the night with less than a minute left in the third quarter.

After primarily attacking the paint for the second and third quarters, the Woolies returned to form in the fourth quarter.

Millbury worked the edge of the key and looked for separation on the outside. They were unable to make any 3-point shots as they were met by the Hurricanes on the outside.

“With a team like this, they can all shoot the 3-ball pretty good. You can’t really help off of anybody, so everybody has to do their job and contain their girl,” Wojcik said. “And then it’s one-on-one in the post, they were trying to pound it down on the side and we had Riley down there and we got the ball to her.”

Robinson scored eight points behind a team-high 13-point performance by McGrath. Field also posted seven points in the winning effort.

Canales scored her four points in the second quarter in part off of her steals.

“I think that’s what we do best at Hoosac, we like to pressure,” Robinson said. “When we pressure on defense, it comes off on our offense, so once we have confidence on defense and we get some steals, then we’re just boosted up on offense and want to make more shots.”

“I went to the high post and then we were able to find shooters on the wings,” Riley Robinson said. “It was working for us. So, we just kept going about it and when we went into halftime, we knew what we had to do, and we adjusted to their defense.”

Shaleigh Levesque also scored four points and Gabrielle Billetz tallied six – all on successful free throws while the Hurricanes shot 19-23 from the foul line.

To Wojcik, it’s a noticeable improvement from past years.

“Honestly, we’ve been shooting them so poorly,” he said. “We shot 'em poorly in the semis in Western Mass., we were four-for-eight in the finals, I mean, the girls have been shooting between 50 and 100 a day, I don’t know what else you could do.”

Heading into the state final, the seniors couldn’t ask for a better way to potentially end their high school varsity careers.

“It feels really good as a senior,” Field said, “moving on and not ending the season on the semifinals.”