Pinkerton girls basketball hands Manchester Memorial first loss (video)

MANCHESTER - The Pinkerton Academy girls basketball team is all about keeping things simple on the defensive end of the court.

The Astros didn't try anything out of the ordinary, just played straight-up man-to-man defense Friday night against Manchester Memorial.

With the exception of a four-minute stretch in the fourth quarter, Pinkerton played that defense to near perfection, holding the Crusaders to 16 points below their season average and handed Memorial its first loss of the season, 54-46, in Division I action.

Up 16 points early in the fourth quarter, the Astros (9-1) withstood a 15-3 run by the Crusaders (11-1) that saw Memorial get within four points with 1:18 to play. But Pinkerton went 4 of 5 at the free throw line the rest of the way and kept the Crusaders from getting any closer.

"If you keep it simple and you teach them how to do the simple things right, I think good things come from that," Pinkerton coach Lani Buskey said. "I’m proud of the defense. They’ve got some offensive weapons on this team and our defense showed it’s the real deal. This is a game where we’re going to take some ownership of our defense. I thought the girls stepped up."

Brooke Kane led the Pinkerton offense, scoring 14 points, and she added four blocks on the defensive end, while Madison Mahoney and Alicia D'Onoforio had 10 points apiece and Amanda Lemire recorded nine.

Memorial got a game-high 18 points from Haleigh Shea, including all eight of the team's points in the second quarter, and Melanie Presseau added 13 points, including three 3-pointers, as she scored eight points in the second half

"For us, there were long stretches where we didn’t rebound particularly well, and we couldn’t finish layups," Memorial coach Greg Cotreau said. "If we can fix those things, I think the outcome is much different and we have a good chance to win this game. On our run, we started to do those things. We started to rebound, we were able to get out and run, we started to make some layups, but it was a little too late at that point."

After a 3-pointer by Presseau and a basket by Shea cut Pinkerton's lead to 33-28 with 4:04 left in the third quarter, but the Astros ended the frame on a 10-3 run and D'Onoforio scored two quick baskets to open the fourth, going up 47-31. Memorial took a timeout and both teams tried to regroup.

"I said to them, it doesn’t matter the lead, (Memorial) is too good," Buskey said.

"If we continue to play the way we’re playing, this game is going to run away from us and we’re not going to get it back," Cotreau said of what he told his players. "We can fold and let Pinkerton run us out of our own gym in the fourth quarter, or we can play tougher and smarter, be more physical, and continue to fight."

Two free throws by Mollie Simpson got Memorial rolling, as the Crusaders scored six straight to cut the lead to 10. Memorial started to press after the timeout, and forced Pinkerton into six turnovers during the Crusaders' run.

A free throw by Kane made it 48-37 Pinkerton with 3:42 left, but a putback Ashley Mathieu-LaFrance made it nine-point game and a 3-pointer by Presseau made it 50-44. Shea came up with a steal that led to a basket by Lyric Grumblatt to cut the lead to four, 50-46 with 1:18 to go, but that was as close as Memorial would get.

"It was just a little too much (of a hole)," Cotreua said. "We spent so much energy coming back, we didn’t have enough to finish."