Defense getting the job done for Londonderry boys basketball

Nate Stanton sounded like he was joking Tuesday night when he said everyone on the Londonderry High School boys basketball team was going to have to make two hundred free throws at the next practice.

But after the Lancers went 7 of 15 from the line in the fourth quarter - including 4 of 11 in the final 75 seconds - of what ended up being a 55-51 win over Nashua South, anything is possible.

Fortunately for the Lancers, they were able to execute their defensive game plan in the second half with much more success than what they saw at the foul line. After giving up 29 points to South in the first half, Londonderry held the Panthers to just eight in the third quarter and 22 for the half.

Londonderry (6-3) is the only team in Division I that has yet to allow 60 points in a game, and Stanton attributes that to the willingness of his players to do whatever it takes to win.

"I think they’ve bought in to what it takes for us to win," the coach said. "We control what we can control, and that’s our effort, that’s our defense. We’re not a team that’s going to score 75 points a game. There might be a game that we do, but 90 percent of the time, we’re going to be in the 40s or 50s. We’ve got to hone in on what makes us a great team and that’s our defensive effort."

That effort was there in the Lancers' first five games, when they started 5-0 including wins over preseason favorites Spaulding and Bedford.

But Londonderry hit a rough stretch after that, dropping three straight close games, the last two against Merrimack (4-6) and Pinkerton (2-7), teams that are below the Lancers in the division standings.

"(Against) Pinkerton, we weren’t playing that aggressively," Stanton said. "When we on five in a row, that was us, we were getting every 50-50 ball and getting stops when we needed them. We had a great practice (Monday) and they were into it. A team that loses three in a row could have folded and we could have accepted it."

Londonderry didn't, and with Jake Anderson and Dakota Bertrand combined for 36 of the team's points against South, the rest of the roster stepped up defensively. And it didn't hurt that the Lancers hit seven 3-pointers as a team, four in the first half that helped them stay in the game.

"To run the defense we’re running, it takes all five guys on the court," Stanton said. "They’ve got to communicate and be in the right spots at all times.

"It’s not easy to have high school kids really dig down for 32 minutes. We’re not there yet, but we’re getting there. They’re buying in. To be unselfish is a challenge and I thought they were very unselfish and moved the ball great and got the job done."

The Lancers schedule gets tougher over the next couple of weeks, starting Friday night with a game at Salem (5-4). Londonderry then returns home to face Winnacunnet (9-1) on Tuesday, followed by games at Portsmouth (8-2) and Alvirne (8-2) and then a home date with Manchester Central (5-4).