Bench gives Pinkerton girls basketball a lift in quarterfinal win against Dover

DERRY - James Flynn felt like his Dover High School girls basketball team had a good defensive game plan going into Friday night's Division I quarterfinal against Pinkerton Academy's top players.

But with five Astros picking up two or more fouls in the first half, Pinkerton called on its depth to keep it afloat, and the bench more than answered the call.

Emily Leonard, Hayden Leccese and Devin LeBrun gave Pinkerton key minutes in the first half while Elizabeth Lavoie and Sydney Gerossie combined for 48 points as the No. 2 Astros got past the No. 7 Green Wave 84-65 at the Hackler Gymnasium.

The win sends Pinkerton (18-1) to the semifinals, where it will face No. 3 Londonderry, which defeated No. 11 Alvirne in the quarterfinals, at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at a site to be determined.

Lavoie finished with 25 points and Gerossie hit five 3-pointers and added 23 points. Leonard came off the bench to score 13 of her 15 points, including three 3s, in the first half as the Astros survived despite starters Alexandria White, Brooke Benz and Kaylee Dupuis sitting for most of the half.

"Not that we were taking those kids lightly, we just had a good game plan to stop some of their top girls," Flynn said. "A good team like that, when they have girls coming off the bench hitting shots, there’s only so much you can do. Those girls stepped up and hit some big ones."

Dover (12-8) got 39 points from Lilly Nossiff while Avery Littlefield shot 7 of 8 from the free throw line and finished with 12 points.

"When you look at matchups, that was the last team I wanted," Pinkerton coach Lani Buskey said. "I think they’re better than a seven seed, in my honest opinion, but I took it for what it was. We recognized that if we want to go deep in the playoffs, this is the best game for us. That was a high, intense, very good team."

And the Green Wave were in step with the Astros to start. Dover led 14-12 on a three-point play by Nossiff with 3:12 left in the first quarter. But a basket by Benz followed by a jumper and 3 from Leonard helped start Pinkerton on a 16-2 run to close the quarter, with Gerossie scoring the final seven points of the run.

"I think this game, because of the foul trouble, with two girls fouling out, I went into the bench (Friday) and Emily Leonard showed up," Buskey said. "The light shined on her and that was awesome. She deserved it.

"When we stretched the lead, it was Syd, Liz, Hayden, Devin and Emily. I needed them to step up. We have known we’re deep, but there have been some games where I haven’t gone as deep as I should have, or given them the quality minutes they just got. They proved to me how much they’ve been working this season."

Pinkerton extended the lead to as many as 25 points before Dover cut it to 19, 48-29, going into halftime.

"We had a few small mistakes early, and I told the girls at half, great teams like Pinkerton are going to execute on those mistakes," Flynn said. "We made a few more than them. The best thing we can do is fight, and in that third quarter, they battled. We could have hung it up and called it a game. I could not be more proud of my girls."

After the teams traded points early in the third, Dover went on an 11-1 run to cut the lead to 55-44 with 2:25 remaining in the quarter. That included the Green Wave shooting 7 of 8 from the line during that stretch.

But Pinkerton had an answer, with Leccese hitting a 3 to stop the run. Moments later, Leonard drove to the basket and scored and Lavoie followed with a 3. All of a sudden, the Astros' lead was back to 17 points.

"Our defense feeds our offense and they were giving them a little too much space," Buskey said. "I don’t think they got complacent with a 20-point lead, but I think they took a step off. It was a little six- or eight-point run on offense to fuel us. There wasn’t a panic, but I wanted a bucket to fall, because once a bucket drops, you see the energy start to create."

Dover came back again with a 9-3 run to make it 66-55 with 6:19 to go, but a pair of 3s from Gerossie, sandwiched around a basket by Lavoie, got the Astros lead up to 18 points. Pinkerton got it up to 24 with just under three minutes to go.

Pinkerton goes back to the final four for the second time in three years and will face its biggest rival, Londonderry, who the Astros defeated 74-48 on Jan. 19. They'll meet at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday with the site still to be determined.