By Chris Paul
The Londonderry High School Girls’ Basketball squad had a very strong victory over the higher-seeded Windham Jaguars last week to start the playoffs, but then fell a bit short to the number two seed in Portsmouth finishing the season with 11 wins and 9 losses.
The Lancers took their 10-8 regular season record into the NHIAA Division I playoffs as the number 10 seed and needed to knock off Windham (#7) to continue in the playoffs.
Two weeks earlier, LHS had a difficult time scoring against WHS and lost their only regular season meeting with a dismal 38-28 result.
On Tuesday night, Feb. 28, at Windham High School, the Lancer girls flipped the scoring,outlasting the Jags 51-34 to advance to the quarterfinals.
Neither team came out of the gate very strong to start this first round game. Londonderry scored seven-points and trailed Windham in the first quarter 8-7.
The Lancers were outscored 11-10 in the second period also and were faced to contemplate a 19-17 deficit heading into the halftime break.
In the third, the Lady Lancers stepped up the offense and kept the Jaguars off their game on defense with a number of turnovers. They managed a 19-5 advantage coming out of the break to head into the final quarter leading 36-24.
In the fourth, LHS kept scoring while disrupting Windham’s offense for a 15-6 result and the 51-30 first-round victory.
The LHS scoring was fairly evenly distributed in the win.
Freshman guard, Brooke Eacrett, led her team with 13-points, including two, three-pointers and six from the line.
Fellow freshman, Sammy Sullivan, managed 11-points in the game, despite having defensive attention drawn towards her. Most of Sullivan’s scoring came by way of foul shots.
Seniors Shannon Ball and Jordon Furlong as well as sophomore Reagan Anderson all finished with nine-points in the victory.
The win over Windham put the young Londonderry squad on the road to face the very tough Portsmouth Clipper on Friday night, March 3.
The number two seeded Clippers had lost just once in the regular season and beat LHS 58-34 in the second week of the season.
According to second year head coach, Jon Doherty, his team played an incredible game and it was a great competitive effort from LHS. “The team really gave Portsmouth a scare, but fell short by 12 for a 60-48 finish.”
Sullivan was the Lancers high-scorer in the game with 16-points.
Shannon Ball had 14-points in her final game as a Lancer.
Overall, Doherty was optimistic about the future of the LHS team.
He commented, “I was just really proud of the group effort this season, from the kids on the bench to the starters and everyone in between the team really bought into being a part of something bigger than themselves and I am excited to see what the future holds for this young group. We are sad to lose our seniors but we bring back a very strong group of kids and welcome in some young talent from the middle school.”