FREEPORT – The Freeport girls’ basketball team had a surprise ready for Coach Seth Farrington.

Two, actually.

The first was a piece of history, as the Falcons rallied in the fourth quarter to defeat Greely, 50-45, giving Freeport its first win over the Rangers in at least 22 years.

“It’s just a huge win for the program,” Farrington said. “Anytime you can play well against a Coach (Todd) Flaherty-led team, that says something. They’re always going to be prepared, always going to be organized. … We had to play well and just did enough.”

The second surprise came in the minutes after the victory, as Farrington, who often sprays his players with a water bottle after big wins, was greeted by a full water cooler shower in the locker room by his jubilant team.

“I can tell you, it was the best bath I’ve ever taken,” said Farrington, whose team has won five of its last six.

The players were planning it ahead of time. But first they had to win. Thanks to an effort led by 20 points and 13 rebounds from Maddie Cormier, that objective was finally accomplished.

“We thought that we would get him back tonight,” Cormier said. “It feels so good. The best feeling in the world. … Ever since our loss in overtime back at the beginning of the season, we’ve been really fueled that when we played them again, we were going to have a different outcome.”

Greely beat Freeport 50-46 in overtime on Jan. 3.

Angel Pillsbury and Sydney Gelhar had eight points apiece for Freeport (9-8), while Isabelle Orlando added seven.

“It feels good to stick it out this time,” said Pillsbury, a senior, who added eight rebounds. “I think we were all thinking about (the OT loss). We just had to focus on this game, and what we were doing in the moment.”

Sophia Ippolito scored 11 points and Asja Kelman had 10 for Greely (8-9), which was outscored at the free throw line by 13 points on 27 more attempts.

“I think we just made a couple of mistakes and went cold, and (we were) giving up too many free throws,” Flaherty said. “It wasn’t on the officials, that’s on us. We’re committing fouls, and not getting to the line ourselves.”

Greely fell behind 11-2 after the first quarter but rallied back to take the lead four times, the last coming when Avery Butler hit a 3-pointer for a 36-34 Rangers lead with 30 seconds left in the third. Freeport pulled ahead for good, however, in the fourth on a lefty floater by Orlando, which made it 40-38 Freeport with just over five minutes to go.

The Falcons stretched the lead to 47-40, but Greely restored some drama when Kelman hit a 3-pointer to make it 47-43 and Zada Smith hit a jumper to make it 47-45 with 43 seconds remaining.

Cormier, who had 15 of her points in the second half, made two free throws with 28.5 seconds remaining to ice it.

“My mindset was just to beat Greely, I’ve looked up to them for so long,” Cormier said. “Last year when we played them we had pretty close games, but we ended up losing. I just felt this fire ever since, that I wanted to prove myself and prove that this team is something special.”

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