Experience helped Pinkerton girls basketball weather storm against Manchester Central

There were two reasons why Lani Buskey waited, and waited, and waited, to call a timeout in the third quarter of Tuesday night's game between the Pinkerton Academy and Manchester Central High School girls basketball teams.

They wear Nos. 3 and 14 for the Astros.

While the Little Green were erasing what had been a 12-point halftime lead for the Astros, Buskey held off on taking a timeout, hoping to see if the less-experienced players on the roster could figure it out on their own.

Instead, Central opened the second half with a 10-1 run to cut Pinkerton's lead down 31-28 with 3:37 left in the third, and the Astros finally took that timeout.

"I was biting my tongue to not call that timeout too quickly and bail them out too quickly," Buskey said. "I said 'how do we respond now? How does the team grow from this?'"

For the time being, at least, the response for Pinkerton was to turn to seniors Brooke Kane and Madison Mahoney. After the Little Green got within three points, the Astros outscored them 26-12 the rest of the way, with Kane and Mahoney accounting for 21 of Pinkerton's final points.

Kane finished with a game-high 22 points and Mahoney had 15 as the Astros took a 56-40 victory over the Little Green in the Division I opener for both teams.

"I know for a fact I have two of the most experienced girls in the league in Madi and Brooke," Buskey said. "To me, I can take a deep breath and allow the runs to happen. In allowing that, the young ones grow and learn.

"I’ve got some young ones. I’ve got immense experience with Madi and Brooke, but then I have a lot of youth. The potential is enormous right now."

That potential showed in the first half, as seven different players scored for Pinkerton and the Astros were able to keep Central from scoring during a four-plus minute stretch in the second quarter.

But the Little Green made adjustments at halftime, and despite Buskey's warnings, the Astros got away from what they had been doing best in the first half.

"We got a little too comfortable and we stopped moving our feet on defense and started getting fouls," the coach said. "His whole offense is based on screen-and-roll and get back to the middle. We weren’t allowing them to cut the belly in the first half, but in the second half, the feet got slow."

And at the other end, the offense struggled against Central's defense, turning the ball over six times during the Little Green's run.

"They came out of the half and upped their pressure a lot, which we expected," Kane said "It shook us at first, but we got used it. We got our composure back. We have a lot of girls who are seeing more minutes than they have in the past. A lot of younger girls who are playing a lot more, it’s a new team dynamic that we’ve got to get in to it and get the feel for it.

"We definitely have a lot of stuff we need to work on, but I think it was a good win and we moved the ball well as a team. There were good things on both ends."