Bedford girls basketball hangs on to beat Londonderry, win 2nd D1 title in a row (video)

DURHAM - For a stretch of the third quarter in Saturday's Division I girls basketball championship, the Bedford and Londonderry high school girls basketball teams traded empty possessions.

Frustrating as that might have been for Kevin Gibbs to see his team give the ball up on offense, the Bulldogs coach was OK with it, because Bedford's defense was doing what it wanted.

And when the Lancers cut a deficit of a dozen points down to just three in the fourth quarter, the Bulldogs stepped up again defensively, never letting No. 2 Londonderry get any closer as No. 1 Bedford held on for a 50-44 win at the University of New Hampshire's Lundholm Gymnasium.

The championship not only gives Bedford (22-0) back-to-back D1 titles, but extends the team's win streak to 44 games in the regular season and playoffs and 50 overall.

"We don’t talk about being undefeated," Gibbs said. "We talk about playing the games. We talk about playing the next game. They’re just excited, and I’m excited for them, to have won this game. They worked their tails off. Londonderry is unbelievably awesome and a great team."

Kate Allard led Bedford with 12 points before fouling out in the final minute of the game, and the senior was tasked with guarding Londonderry's Sammy Sullivan for most of the game, before getting into foul trouble.

"She’s a really good player," Allard said of Sullivan. "She’s really physical and she’s really good at making reads, but we wanted to take her out as much as we could."

The Bulldogs did that in the first half, but Sullivan bounced back with 16 of her game-high 21 points in the second half, including a basket with 5:21 left that cut Bedford' lead to 40-37.

A 7-2 run appeared to put the game away for Bedford, giving it an eight-point lead with 1:21 remaining, but Sullivan and Brooke Eacrett were a combined 6 of 6 at the free throw line down the stretch to make it a 48-44 Bedford lead with 20 seconds remaining.

Bedford's defense stepped up again, holding Londonderry without a field over the final three-plus minutes of the game.

"They defend hard," Gibbs said. "We like to run, but defense is what’s going to do it. That was the last message I gave them. Defensive equals offense. You play good defense, that takes the place of wowing people on offense. They did a great job."

Annie Zink added 11 points and Mel McCarthy had nine points and seven rebounds for Bedford while Sarah Muir had six points, eight rebounds and five assists.

Eacrett had 11 points for the Lancers and Mia Giampa had seven while Reagan Anderson had six rebounds, four assists and three steals.

"I think we came out with some more energy and we were ready," Londonderry coach Jon Doherty said. "They kind of punched back a little bit and we got in our heads a little bit. We got behind. It came down to a little bit of a mental game where we probably could have shared the ball a little bit better."

Playing in the program's first title game since 2014, the Lancers fell behind early, going scoreless for the first three minutes of the game. Despite trailing 6-0 to start, Londonderry was able to closer the gap, and Bedford led 12-10 going into the second.

But the Bulldogs opened the second with a 6-0 run to take their largest lead of the game and eventually took a 25-18 advantage into halftime.

The lead grew to as much as 12 points in the third quarter, but not until after the teams traded a few empty possessions.

"We had the ball, gave it up," Gibbs said. "They got the ball, gave it up. We got the ball, gave it up. They got the ball, gave it up. I turned to Jordan and said this is like the Pinkerton game. We ain’t scoring, but they ain’t scoring either. Then we started to pick it up."

Eacrett scored at the buzzer to end the third, making it an eight-point Bedford lead, and Giampa opened the fourth with a 3-pointer. Five straight points from Sullivan capped an 11-3 run for the Lancers that got them within three, but that would be as close as they'd get.

"I think this team is so selfless," Allard said. "At the end of the day, we just want to win together. It doesn’t matter about individual stats. We play together and it shows. We play better when we play as a team."