Defense propels Portsmouth girls basketball to win over Merrimack

MERRIMACK – The Portsmouth High School girls basketball team put on a clinic on the defensive end Friday evening.

The Clippers held host Merrimack scoreless for more than six-and-a-half minutes to open the first quarter, while relinquishing only three points in the entire first period and nine total first-half points during a 47-35 win in Division I action.

Portsmouth (9-2), which played a fundamentally-sound game, utilized a balanced scoring attack with three players reaching double figures in junior Ava Karlin (12 points, two 3-pointers), senior Abbe Laurence (12 points) and senior Arianna Hebert (10 points).

“It is a really good win to come on the road and beat a really well-coached Merrimack team,” Clippers coach Tim Hopley said. “We knew it was going to be a battle and it was everything that we expected it to be. Defensively, we did a good job defending the perimeter. Especially in the first half we were on point defensively. They hit a few more shots in the second half, but for the most part we made them work for everything they got.”

The Tomahawks (7-4), who were coming off a three-game winning streak, received a strong outing from junior forward Samantha Page, who dropped seven of her team-high 12 points in the fourth, as she finished with a pair of old-fashioned three-point plays. Sophomore guard Theresa Twardosky also reached double figures, dropping 10 points with a trio of 3-pointers.

Merrimack coach Courtney Cheetham thinks that there are some lessons that her Tomahawks can take away from this game, as the group heads down the stretch of the regular season.

“One thing that we learned from this game is that we can face teams that are going to play us tough and it does not mean we have to change what we are doing,” Cheetham said. “It means we have to do it better, smarter and harder.”

The visitors raced out to a 7-0 lead on a layup by Hebert with 1:55 left in the first quarter, and then with 1:17 remaining, Page put the hosts on the board, absorbing contact during a driving layup en route to a three-point play.

Back-to-back made free throws with 20.7 seconds left by Hebert gave the Clippers a 9-3 advantage after one. During the opening eight minutes, Portsmouth’s man-to-man, on-ball defense was stifling, as everyone moved their feet well, rotated and helped on weak-side passes.

Merrimack tried to put a dent in Portsmouth’s lead in the second, as Twardosky buried a right-wing three-ball with 3:55 on the clock, trimming the deficit down to 11-6. The Clippers fired back with a 7-0 surge, concluding with a right baseline jumper by senior forward Reilly Velez, which pushed the lead up to 18-6.

In the final minute of the first half, junior Riley Crampton made a heads-up steal on defense for the Tomahawks, and then flew down the open court and converted an old-fashioned three-point play with 34.1 seconds left. Portsmouth took an 18-9 lead into halftime.

The visitors did not experience a letdown in the third quarter, keeping their foot on the throttle, as the lead ballooned up to 17 on two occasions. A layup by junior guard Anna Smith with 1:35 left put the lead at 30-13, and then a layup by Hebert with under a minute showing gave the squad a 32-15 edge. Twardosky banked in a top-of-the-arc 3 at the buzzer, trimming the deficit to 14 heading into the final eight minutes.

Merrimack made a run in the fourth, highlighted by four straight points by Page to open the quarter, and the Tomahawks cut the deficit to single digits on an old-fashioned three-point play by Page with 2:54 left.

“Our kids stuck with it, and played a competitive and intense style of basketball and never gave up,” Cheetham said. “We fought back a lot in the second half and brought the intensity, but then Portsmouth came back and hit some shots. I thought their defensive pressure was really good, which caused us to get a little bit out of sync.”

Portsmouth, which is riding a four-game winning streak, did not allow Merrimack to get closer than nine down the stretch, as Laurence controlled the paint in the fourth, dropping eight points.

The Tomahawks and Clippers will be back in action on Monday at 7 p.m., as Merrimack will travel to Bishop Guertin and Portsmouth will be on the road against Londonderry.