Bedford girls basketball takes care of business to beat Exeter in D1 quarters (video)

BEDFORD - The Bedford High School girls basketball team went into Thursday night's quarterfinal wanting to show why it was the top seed in the Division I playoffs.

The Bulldogs accomplished that, and then some.

No. 1 Bedford jumped out in front of No. 9 Exeter early, went on a big run to end the first half and dominated the third quarter on the way to an 85-39 win over the Blue Hawks that puts the Bulldogs in the semifinals for the sixth year in a row.

Kate Allard led the way with 23 points while Annie Zink had 17 points, with two 3-pointers, and Mel McCarthy had 16 points. Sarah Muir was also in double figures with 13 points, as Bedford (20-0) reached the 70-point mark with just over two minutes left in the third quarter.

"We have high expectations, and our expectations were that, we wanted to make sure we showed ourselves to be the No. 1 seed," Bedford coach Kevin Gibbs said. "I think the girls did a really good job of it. They moved the ball really well, found their teammates really well, we broke down the defenses.

"We knew they’d be taking a lot of 3s, and when a team takes as many 3s as they do, they’re going to make some. The key was to not let them make too many and I think we did a fairly good job."

Exeter (12-8) had five 3-pointers as a team, with Karli Scherpf hitting two of them as part of her team-high 10 points. Anna McGuinness added eight points and Jessica Melick finished with seven markers.

"I thought they put their hearts out there and they play a hundred percent," Exeter coach Kaylene Rogers said. "Bedford is a good team for a reason. We played until the end. We played hard and you can’t ask for anything more than that.

"We were really tight the first quarter and we weren’t making our shots and we kind of spiraled from there. I give the girls credit, they were working hard until the end."

Bedford led 24-8 at the end of the first quarter, but Exeter was able to hang around early in the second, as a jump shot by McGuinness made it 31-15 Bulldogs. By the time the Blue Hawks scored again, the game looked a lot different.

Allard answered the basket with one of her own on the next possession, starting the Bulldogs on a 12-0 run that put them up 43-15 with 2:16 left until halftime.

"We can put points up in big buckets," Gibbs said. "The discussion was look, we needed to shut them down. The kids dug in and they did it."

The Bulldogs added a 17-2 run in the third quarter, which included four transition layups in under 80 seconds, capped by a putback by Allard to make it 70-29.

Bedford will now face No. 4 Concord Christian, which knocked off No. 5 Bishop Guertin 48-33 in the quarterfinals, at 8 p.m. Monday at Exeter High School in the semifinals. The Bulldogs will be looking to make their fifth title game in a row, while the Kingsmen will be trying to reach the D1 final for the first time; they've won titles in D2, D3 and D4 in each of the previous three seasons.