Staff photo / Neel Madhavan Chaney’s Alyssa Brown (11) drives baseline looking to pass to a teammate against Mineral Ridge on Friday night. Brown led the Cowgirls with an electric 40-point performance.

WEATHERSFIELD — Chaney head coach Dwight Berry thinks Cowgirls star sophomore Alyssa Brown is destined for great things.

She showed why on Friday night, as Brown put together an electric 40-point performance to help Chaney rally to beat Mineral Ridge 73-66.

“She means more, not just to this program, but to Youngstown City Schools,” Berry said. “She’s going to bring a positive light to the whole district, and I love that about her.”

Whenever the Cowgirls needed a basket, Brown was there. Brown made 15-of-30 of her field goals, including four 3-pointers.

She scored 25 of her points in the first half, while scoring 14 of Chaney’s 19 second-quarter points to help the Cowgirls keep pace with Mineral Ridge, who raced ahead with a 23-point first quarter and took a 39-34 lead into halftime.

“I’ll be honest, we came out of halftime, she was sitting on the bench and I said to her, ‘I’m going to need 25 more out of you,'” Berry said. “She almost got it.”

Chaney entered the fourth quarter trailing by 10, but scored a flurry of baskets to open the period to cut into the deficit. Brown only had three points in the third quarter, but she closed things out with 12 points in the fourth quarter.

As big as Brown’s performance was, it may all have been for naught had it not been for senior Alexandria Pete’s contributions down the stretch.

With the Rams clinging to a two-point lead with about two minutes to go, Pete hit two free throws to tie the game for the first time all night.

On the ensuing possession, she then came down and hit a three to give the Cowgirls their first lead of the night. She then hit two more clutch free throws to give Chaney some separation.

“She stepped up when she needed to,” Berry said of Pete. “She came in and got a key rebound, she hit a key three and I believe she had a steal as well. She did what she’s supposed to do as a senior.”

Pete finished with 11 points for Chaney, while Simone Lewis also added 11 points of her own.

The combination of Brown and Pete helped the Cowgirls outscore Mineral Ridge 25-8 to come from behind in the fourth quarter.

“They came out and scored six straight,” Mineral Ridge head coach Amy Harrison said. “Our buckets weren’t falling, which didn’t help. We had a hard time stopping Brown. Once we got into foul trouble, it makes it difficult to step up and stop her, so that was kind of our downfall. Told (the team), pull it out a little bit. We still kind of pushed the ball a little bit — we should have stalled. So just a lesson learned. It was a good game, and hopefully we’ll learn from it and move forward.”

With its defense leading the way during that final period, Chaney held the Rams to 3-for-15 from the floor.

“The defense stayed locked in, stayed focused and worked as a team,” Brown said. “At the end, we all came together, got our rebounds, steals, all that. … Being able to come back on a good team like them is great. The focus we have, the confidence we have now is going to be great.”

Brown went bucket-for-bucket at times throughout the game with Mineral Ridge senior Ava Hulett, who had her own memorable night with 28 points on 13-for-17 shooting. Sullivan Sandy also added 13 points for the Rams.

“It was a good battle,” Harrison said. “Ava inside, she’s pretty hard to stop. … It was a good battle between the two of them. They’re both great players, and it’s fun to watch good basketball.”

Chaney is off for the holiday break, but the Cowgirls will return to action after Christmas by hosting Champion on Dec. 30. The Rams will host Western Reserve on Monday evening.