By Chris Paul
Despite starting their season with a tough 35-27 at Windham High School on Friday night, the Londonderry High School Girls’ Basketball team snapped back, getting their first win under new head coach Jon Doherty on Monday night.
Doherty took over the program in June, after longtime head coach Nick Theos announced his retirement.
The Lady Lancers hosted the Purple Panthers from Nashua South on Monday night, Dec. 13, and after a slow start to the first half on both sides of the court, the home squad tightened up their defense and went on to narrowly defeat their guest by a score of 46-45.
Nashua outscored LHS in the first half 36-25 of the game, in part due to the Panthers hitting many of their three-point attempts. The NSHS squad had 15 of their 18, second quarter points, scored from outside the arc.
After the halftime break, the Lady Lancers turned into a much better team and outscored Nashua 12-4 in the third quarter and 9-5 in the fourth for the narrow, one-point win.
Londonderry was able to shutdown the South team’s outside shooting and allowed just two, three-pointers to find the net in the second half.
After the game, the new head coach commented on the quick turn around, “Definitely a lot of struggles in the first half, but we came alive in the second half. We were definitely more under control, the defense tightened up a lot, they (Nashua) had 36 points at halftime and ended with 45, so a much better defensive effort from us.”
Senior forward Olivia Chau was the high scorer for the Lady Lancers, getting 16-points in the game, including a critical three-pointer in the final seconds of the fourth quarter to put the Lancers ahaead for good.
Chau followed up her well-timed three-pointer with a defensive steal on the other end of the court with 13-seconds on the clock.
Kate Sloper contributed 10-points, with one from outside the arc. Shannon Ball and Jordon Furlong both had six-points in the game and Reagan Anderson and Madelyn O’Shaughnessy added four each.
In the 35-27 Friday night loss to Windham High School, fouls played a big part in the game, with the Lady Jaguars getting 21 of their 35-points from the foul line.
The Lady Lancers had 11-points scored by free throws.
Chau led in scoring with 11-points and Sloper had five-points in the low-scoring contest.
The team will travel to Nashua on Friday night, Dec. 17, for the unenviable task of taking on the always-tough Lady Cardinals from Bishop Guertin who have won five of the last six Division I State Championships.