Londonderry girls basketball mucks it up to beat Bedford (video)

BEDFORD - Nick Theos wasn't trying to get his Londonderry High School girls basketball team to set the sport back a few decades.

But if that's what it took for the Lancers to get a win Thursday night over Bedford, than turn back the clocks they would.

Londonderry "dirtied" up the game like its coach asked, and on a night when neither team shot well, the Lancers handed the Bulldogs their first loss of the year, 28-21.

"Some of it was hard work, some of it was luck and missed shots, some of it was a lot of different things, probably coaching at some point," Theos said. "Bedford is too good of a team to just ... you can't open it up, and run up and down the court and shoot with these guys. You will get run off the court every single time.

"We don't try to play that way against them. We try to dirty it up and this is what we get. I didn't think it’d be that low scoring. I didn't think we'd dirty it up that much. I didn't want to set the sport back that much."

Bedford led for most of the first three quarters, but had one field goal and scored just five points in the second half. Londonderry didn't score its first points of the second half until 2:39 remained in the third, but scored twice to take a 19-18 lead into the fourth.

The Lancers (7-1) went 5 of 9 from the free throw line in the final 1:07 of the game to pull away. Jaclyn Luckhardt led Londonderry with nine points, going 5 of 7 at the line, and Kelsey Coffey added eight points, including the game's only 3-pointer.

Jenoyce Laniyan led Bedford eight points and Madeline Blake chipped in with five, as the pair combined to go 7 of 9 from the line.

But the Bulldogs (7-1) struggled from the start, missing their first four shots and failing to get the offensive board on any of them.

"We weren't running our offense," Bedford coach Sue Thomas said. "We play a motion offense, there's supposed to be a lot of movement and they're all free to shoot. It was one pass and a shot with no rebounders early in the game.

"Then it seemed the more shots we missed, the tighter everyone got. I just told them I was hoping if we could have strung together two or three good possessions, I think the whole team would have picked up on it. Instead, it was the other way around."

Londonderry kept Bri Purcell off the scoreboard until her only field goal with 12 seconds left in the game and Nikki Tucci was scoreless.

"Kate (Wells) guarded her most of the game (Thursday) and held her scoreless," Theos said. "We refuse to let Tucci beat us. That's not going to happen. They have so many good kids, you have to pick and chose who to stop.

"We know (Luckhardt) is going to give (Purcell) a good matchup. They'll go back-and-forth and hopefully balance each other out. Kate Balcom is going to matchup with Blake and they'll balance each other out. I told Kate she had to win that Tucci matchup and she did (Thursday)."

Londonderry had an 8-7 lead after one quarter but Bedford went on a 7-0 over the first five minutes of the second to take its largest lead at 14-8. The Lancers came back with a 7-0 run of their own to go up 15-14, but a jumper by Mia Roy gave Bedford a 16-15 lead going into halftime.

That's where it stood for the first 3:42 of the third quarter, until two free throws by Laniyan gave Bedford an 18-17 lead. But the Bulldogs would go scoreless over the next 8:08, as Londonderry took the lead. The Lancers were up 23-19 when Bedford began fouling with a little more than a minute to go.

"A lot of teams have tried to run with this group and play pretty basketball, and all of them have lost," Theos said. "They are so deep, so big, so talented. We don't care how the victories come."