Coe-Brown girls basketball holds off Souhegan

AMHERST - The season is only two games old for the Coe-Brown Academy girls basketball team, but coach Joe Vachon has a good idea of what the Bears are going to see from opponents for most of the year.

Coe-Brown saw it for 32 minutes Tuesday night against Souhegan.

The Sabers mixed up their defenses, held senior Jennifer Schlim scoreless and held the Bears to under 40 points. Fortunately for Coe-Brown, its defense was even better, as it improved to 2-0 with a 38-21 win over Souhegan.

The Bears scored just 10 points in the second half, six of which came on baskets by Abigail Ahern in the final three minutes, but Coe-Brown limited Souhegan to seven to get the win in a rematch of last year's Division II quarterfinals, also won by the Bears.

"This game probably shows us what we’re going to see most of the rest of the season," Vachon said. "For us, we have to have everyone contribute. They're going to take away girls. We felt like they did, they took away Jenny (Schlim) at times, Sydney (Fisher) at times, Abby (Ahern) at times, and our other girls have to step up and make shots."

In the first half, it was Sarah Curtin, who scored all of her 11 points in the game's first 16 minutes. Ahern also finished with 11 while Haley Ruth added six points.

Souhegan (1-1) didn't have a player reach double figures, as Ciarra Formby-Lavertu led the Sabers with six points and Hannah Chick came off the bench to add five.

"Defensively, we did a good job holding them to 10 points (in the second half)," Souhegan coach Mike Heaney said. "Coe-Brown is a good team and we held them in the second half, and we held a couple of their best players to very low offensive outputs.

"It's not surprising to me, with how young we are, that our offensive is behind. But I thought our defense was solid and it's going to keep us in most games."

Coe-Brown jumped out to an early lead, going up 8-0 with more than five minutes gone in the first quarter. But Souhegan started mixing up its defenses and managed to keep the Bears within striking distance, trailing 17-10 following a layup by Juliane Donohue a little more than a minute into the second quarter.

The Bears responded by closing out the half on an 11-4 run to go up 28-14 at halftime and Coe-Brown stretched the lead to 16 early in the third quarter.

"There were three things we talked about," Vachon said. "The No. 1 thing is defense. We feel that’s going to win games for us. The second thing is rebounding and third is run. As long as we do those three things, we feel like we’re going to be successful.

"At times, I thought we slowed down, and our game is more up tempo. When we do that sometimes, we get into a lull and allow teams to work their way back."

After taking a 30-14 lead, Coe-Brown scored just two points over the next 11-plus minutes. But Souhegan wasn't able to take advantage much at the other end, scoring five points to pull to within 32-19.

"If you'd told me before that we were going to hold them under 40, I'd say we had a chance to win," Heaney said. "We had a lot of good early looks that just didn't go and at times we weren't strong with the ball. That's a sign of a young team, and that will come. When we ran our offense, we got good looks, we just didn't finish."

A free throw by Chick made it a 12-point game with 3:59 to play, but Souhegan couldn't get any closer, and Ahern finally found some room to work in the game's final minutes to put the win away.

"Coming to Souhegan, it's always tough," Vachon said. "Coach Heaney is always prepared and he certainly put challenges in front of us that we haven't seen yet this season. We were happy we got out of here with a win."