HOLLIS – The Hollis/Brookline High School girls basketball team got a taste of what playoff basketball will be like on Thursday night against Hanover.
For one half, it didn’t go so well for the Cavaliers.
H/B went more than 10 minutes in the first half without any points, but still managed to battle back in the fourth quarter to make things interesting in a 50-42 loss to Hanover in Class I action.
Kelly Morgan led the Cavs (11-3) with nine points while Katie Stopera had eight points and Julia Stopera added four points and grabbed eight rebounds.
Hanover (8-3) got 13 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks from Kat Menge and Molly Tallman added 12 points. Emma Rosen also had seven points and four steals.
The loss is the third in the last six games for H/B, which had started the season 8-0. But of those eight wins, only two came against teams in the top 10 in the Class I standings.
“There are a lot of teams that are very weak and some teams are very strong,” H/B coach Bob Murphy said. “I’d much rather be playing teams like (Hanover) at the end of the season.”
The Cavs’ three losses have come against Souhegan (12-1), Oyster River (8-6) and Hanover, three teams that H/B is battling for a home game in the first round of the Class I tournament. Another game against Souhegan and one at Bow (8-5) still remain.
“We’ve got some tough basketball left,” Murphy said. “I’d rather be doing that going into the playoffs and I think any coach would say that. I’d rather have a high seed, but I’d rather not be playing teams at the bottom and then face a team like this and the game is over in the first quarter because you’re just not prepared for them.”
That was the case against the Marauders. The Cavs trailed 10-9 on a 3-pointer by Kelsey Berry with 2:36 left in the first quarter.
By the time H/B scored again – on another basket by Berry – Hanover had gone on a 16-0 run, keeping the Cavs off the scoreboard for 10:06. The Marauders went into halftime up 28-11 after shooting 48 percent in the first half while holding H/B to 18 percent from the field.
“The other team came out with great defensive intensity,” Murphy said. “We didn’t have much of an offense to deal with it. With a defense like that, you can’t really set up set plays. You have to run a motion-type offense to get people moving. That’s what we tried to do, but we had a tough time at both ends of the floor in the first half.”
The Cavs did their best to make it a game in the third quarter, and they did thanks to their own run.
After a basket by Menge gave Hanover a 32-15 lead, H/B scored 14 of the game’s next 16 points over the next 7:53. When Morgan made the second of two free throws with 6:22 left in the game, the Cavs were down just five, 34-29.
The Marauders stretched the lead to nine following a timeout, but free throws by Morgan, McHale Perkins and Olivia Gillis, and a 3-pointer by Jillian Gillis, pulled the Cavs within three points 39-36.
Hanover’s Sharina Stearne hit two free throws to push the lead back to five, but Olivia Gillis made a layup to make it a 41-38 game with 2:33 left.
But the Marauders went right back down the floor and scored again. Hanover made 7-of-10 free throws down the stretch to keep control of the game.
“I was really happy with the way they came back; they could have folded,” Murphy said. “That’s a good team. They make up for their offense because of their defense. I had tough choices of trying to play my best defenders, but when you’re behind like that, you’ve got to put in your scorers, too.
“You learn from this stuff in the sense that you can’t start slow. Those two teams (Souhegan and Bow), along with this game, should prepare us real well.”