Londonderry girls basketball takes care of business to beat Windham in D1 quarterfinal

LONDONDERRY - Jon Doherty was not going to take the Windham High School girls basketball team lightly.

Not when the Jaguars held his Londonderry team to one of its lowest offensive outputs of the regular season. Not when they went into Thursday's Division I quarterfinal with nothing to lose.

However Doherty relayed that message to the Lancers, they got it, and despite No. 6 Windham cutting the lead down to as little as two points in the third quarter, No. 3 Londonderry was able to escape with a 52-37 win over the Jaguars.

The win puts the Lancers in the semifinals for the third year in a row, where they will face No. 2 Bedford, which beat No. 10 Salem 70-20, at 5:30 p.m. Monday at a site still to be determined.

“I don’t take Windham for granted at all,” Doherty said. “Todd (Steffanides) is a phenomenal coach and those kids are bought in. They work hard, they play hard, and it’s the playoffs. A team like that, they’re going to come in, they’re going to be well-prepared, and they’re coming in as underdogs. They’re going to come out swinging and they did.”

Every time it looked like Londonderry (19-3) was going to pull away in the first half, Windham (13-7) found a way to get back in it. The Jaguars outscored the Lancer, 10-5, to open the third quarter to make it a 32-30 Londonderry lead.

Moments later, Londonderry's Sammie Sullivan went to the bench with her fourth foul and wouldn't return for the final four minutes of the third quarter. But the Lancers were able to not only keep the Jaguars at bay, they extended the lead, closing the third on an 8-2 run.

“We’re a little too young for that moment, I think,” Steffanides said. “I think there were just a couple of us that haven’t been through (the playoffs) yet. We were in a rough spot as far as that one.”

With Sullivan battling foul trouble and illness, others carried the scoring load, as Gemma Murray finished with 17 points, including three 3-pointers, and Brooke Eacrett was in double figures with 15 points, going 7 of 8 at the free throw line.

Sullivan finished with eight points while Allison Dinorvo (six points) and Alana Lopriore provided valuable minutes in the second half.

“I give a lot of credit to Alana Lopriore for the way she played,” Doherty said. “She might have had two points, but I think she had about eight steals and nine or 10 rebounds, and was just relentless everywhere on the floor.

“(Dinovo) did a great job. She’s coming alive a little bit, too, starting to figure things out. It was really good to see her find those gaps and be able to finish those layups. She had a bunch of rebounds, too.”

Rileigh Finneran led Windham with 14 points, including three 3s, and Madelyn Begley added two 3s and finished with 10 points. While the outside shooting kept the Jaguars in the game, the free throw line helped take them out, as they were 7 of 21 on the night.

“That’s been kind of the theme,” Steffanides said. “We do (make free throws) more often, maybe we have a different seed, different opponent. Our (outside) shooting improved over the course of the season, especially down the stretch. We were able to knock down some big shots and kind of keep us in it.”

Londonderry looked like it was going to end both the first and second quarters with a double-digit lead, but a 3 by Finneran in the final minute kept Windham within striking distance in each quarter.

The Lancers led 27-20 at halftime, but the Jaguars started chipping away at the lead thanks to back-to-back 3s by Begley. All of a sudden Londonderry's lead was down to two points with just under six minutes to play in the third.

Two free throws from Sullivan and a basket by Lopriore put the Lancers up 36-30, but moments later, Sullivan went to the bench with her fourth foul. After a scoreless stretch, Londonderry found its footing, going up 10 points and then stretching the lead to 45-32 early in the fourth quarter.

“We started off with a lot of good energy with the press that we have been working on,” Doherty said. “I went away from it because the girls were a little hesitant of where the rotations were supposed go and we (adjusted) at halftime. Then in the second half, our energy was much better because of it. Our goal was just to speed them up and I think we got that in the second half”