By Chris Paul
After a dismal 58-29 loss on the road to the Lady Bulldogs of Bedford High School, the Londonderry High School Girls’ Basketball squad bounced back with a very nice 59-45 home win over Trinity High School.
In the loss to Bedford, the Lady Lancers traveled to Bedford set with task of handing the Lady Bulldogs their second defeat of the season. Bedford was 6-1 heading into the game and have beat each f their opponents quite easily. Their only loss was to the State Champion, Bishop Guertin Cardinals, in the first game of the season.
Unfortunately for the Londonderry girls, they lost that contest by 29-points and were faced with at 2-4 record to start the year 2022.
Then on Saturday morning, in a make-up game from earlier in the week, the Lady Lancers hosted the Trinity High School Lady Pioneers, who also had just two wins this season, and came away with a very convincing 59-45.
The one-sided game gave quite a few playing minutes to many of the Londonderry bench players; Trinity only had seven girls suited up.
Londonderry’s biggest hindrance in the game was getting by the extremely tall Trinity forward Achol Tour, who rejected a number of LHS shots throughout the contest.
The Lady Lancer squad got off to a bit of slow start in the rare morning game, trailing 8-7 with three minutes left in the first quarter, but turned things around in the final minute to lead 16-8 at the end of one.
The home team opened up their lead to 31-17 by the end of the first half, giving new Lancer head coach Jon Doherty a chance to put some of his bench to work.
The third quarter had the Lady Lancers dominate the floor, outscoring the winded Lady Pioneers 20-6.
In the final quarter, Trinity was able to score 22-points against some of Londonderry’s younger players and made the game seem a bit closer than it actually was.
Senior forward Olivia Chau led the Lady Lancers in scoring with 21-points.
Junior guard Jordon Furlong 12-points in the game with 10 of them coming in the third quarter.
Junior Shannon Ball and freshman Kate Sloper each had eight-points in the victory. Junior guard Izzy Pucillo finished the game with six-points.
With Londonderry’s third win of the season, the girls headed into this week with a very busy schedule.
The team started the week with a home game against a tough Portsmouth Lady Clippers team (7-1) on Monday night followed by three games on the road.
The Londonderry squad is scheduled to play Manchester Memorial (3-5) on Wednesday, Jan. 12, in Manchester, Keene High School (2-7) on Friday night and Alvirne High School (4-3) on Saturday afternoon.