By Chris Paul
The Londonderry High School Girls’ Basketball squad finished their regular season up last week with wins against Manchester’s Central and Memorial and headed into the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Associations Division I playoffs as the number 10 seed and started that tournament on Tuesday night, Feb. 28, at Windham High School against the Jaguars, who are seeded in the #7 spot.
The Lady Lancers started their week with a trip to Manchester Central High School, on Tuesday night, Feb. 21, where they easily defeated the winless Little Green 47-29 in what was an extremely fast game.
Central could only watch as Londonderry scored 18-points in the first quarter while giving up just one free throw for an 18-1 lead headed into the second.
In the second period, LHS tacked on another 11-points and gave up eight to take a 20-point lead headed into the half.
In the second half, the Londonderry offense let up a bit, scoring just six in the third and 12 in the final quarter, but still finished with an 18-point advantage.
The Lancers win resulted in the Little Green’s 17th consecutive loss of the season and LHS head coach, Jon Doherty, was able to get all his players onto the court fairly evenly.
Freshman Sammy Sullivan led her team in scoring with 14-points, including two, three-pointers and four free throws.
Senior guards, Izabela Pucillo scored seven points in the first half and Shannon Ball had six points.
Freshman Brooke Eacrett and senior Cassidy Dillon both finished with five points.
Three nights later, in the Lancer team’s final home game of the season, on Friday night, Feb. 24, Londonderry put together a strong first half and handed the Lady Crusaders their fourth straight loss and their ninth defeat of the season.
Londonderry led after one period 11-5, with the Lancer defense challenging Manchester at the basket and on the court for a number of turnovers due to offensive fouls.
The Lancer pressure continued in the second period, with LHS outscoring Memorial 19-8 to take a 30-13 lead into the half.
That lead proved to be extremely important, as the Manchester defense tightened up and Londonderry was only able to score 11-points in the second half.
Fortunately, the LHS defense stayed strong and allowed just 17-points in the second half for the 41-30 win.
Sullivan was once again the team leader in scoring, finishing with 20-points, including two, three-pointers and two shots from the line.
Eacrett had nine-points in the victory, getting three buckets and a three-pointer.
Senior Jordon Furlong also had three buckets to finish with six-points and Ball had five-points in the game.
Heading into the playoffs, LHS will face a Windham High School squad that finished the regular season at 11-7 and beat Londonderry two weeks ago by a score of 38-28, The game was one of the team’s lowest scores of the year.