Hollis Brookline girls basketball takes advantage of size to hand Milford first loss (video)

MILFORD - Bob Murphy tried to watch as much film as he could leading into Tuesday's girls basketball game.

What the Hollis Brookline High School coach saw right away was that his Cavaliers had a significant size advantage over their next opponent, Milford.

HB took advantage of its abundance of height early and often, building a comfortable lead in the second quarter and holding off the Spartans' comeback attempt in the third on the way to a 52-33 win in a Division II contest.

Camryn Dunn had 20 points and 12 rebounds and Cheyenne Colbert added 12 points and 18 rebounds, to go with more than a handful of blocked shots, as the Cavs (5-2) scored 36 points inside the 3-point line.

"They’re undefeated coming in, but we’ve got a height advantage and we tried to use it coming in right off the bat," Murphy said. "Cheyenne and Camryn had outstanding games. That’s good stuff against a smaller team.

"They run, they press, but we worked a lot on breaking that press. They got a couple of turnovers on us. I’m just really happy with the way things went."

Daniella Allanach had nine points and McKenna Dunn added seven points for HB, which fell behind 4-0 early but outscored Milford (5-1) 24-9 over the remainder of the first half.

"We got that nice little jolt right at the beginning, but they’re a good team and they’re going to figure out a way," Milford coach Mike Davidson said. "We did not take care of the ball enough to beat a team like that. They’re a strong team. They’ve become a much better team. They’re one of the more well-coached teams in New Hampshire. They came here, they had a purpose, they beat us up pretty good."

Lulu Maguire led the Spartans with 12 points, including two 3-pointers, but no one else was in double figures. Claire Cote came off the bench to hit two 3s for six points and Bailey Johnson added five.

Maguire scored the first two baskets for Milford off turnovers, giving the Spartans a quick 4-0 lead, but HB answered with nine straight to take a lead it would never give up. The Cavs led 13-7 at the end of one quarter, and after a 3 by Maguire to start the second, they outscored the Spartans 11-3 over the rest of the half.

Camryn Dunn and Colbert came out strong in the second half, scoring all of the Cavs' points on a 10-2 run that put HB ahead by 19 points before Milford took a timeout with 5:13 remaining in the third.

The Spartans regrouped during that break and their defense kept HB from scoring for almost four minutes as they started to chip away at the lead. But after a putback by Johnson made it 34-21, Milford's offense dried up, and the Spartans went scoreless for a stretch.

"I don’t think there were any Xs and Os that we did that made that happen," Davidson said. "We have a really good attitude on our team. They don’t give up and they don’t feel like they’re out of a game ever. They kept in it mentally and good things happened. End of the day, they were just a little too much for us."