Portsmouth girls basketball wins defensive battle with Pelham to finish regular season undefeated

PELHAM - After a season full of lopsided victories, the Portsmouth High School girls basketball team needed a test to see how it would handle being in a big moment.

The Clippers got that test Wednesday night against Pelham, and they passed, perhaps not with flying colors, but enough to get the job done.

Portsmouth used a 9-1 run early in the fourth quarter to get some separation from the Pythons and held on for a 37-30 win over Pelham in Division II action. The win completes an undefeated regular season for Portsmouth (18-0), which will be the top seed when the D2 tournament begins Tuesday, and ended Pelham's 12-game winning streak.

"You can’t shy away from the moment," Portsmouth coach Tim Hopley said. "That’s really one of the things that we were hoping (Wednesday) was going to provide, the opportunity for moments that we haven’t had a chance to experience so far this year.

"Things didn’t come easy for either one of us, especially on the offensive end. Neither one of us is accustomed to that. That’s a credit to the defenses on both sides."

Both teams came into the game averaging better than 50 points per game this year while both Portsmouth (27.7 points per game) and Pelham (23.2) had a large margin of victory throughout this season.

"We couldn’t buy a basket and that’s not like us," Pelham coach Bob Shepard said. "We usually score in the 50s or 60s, and if we score in the 50s (Wednesday) we win going away. That’s a very good team, a well-coached team. It was a good game to have."

The Clippers got 11 points from Sadie Shore, including four free throws that helped keep it a two-possession game, while Corinne Lamond scored seven of her nine points during Portsmouth's fourth-quarter run that helped wipe out a Pelham lead. Abbe Laurence also had nine points for the Clippers.

Danielle Sirois led all scorers, getting 12 points for Pelham (15-2) while Olivia Gagnon added seven.

"Corinne has done that several times this year when we’ve needed hoops, stops, rebounds," Hopley said. "She and Abbe play really well off each other. Hannah Taylor had to slide down and defend post, which she’s done for three years for us, and really has gone outside a little more this year to give us a really big lineup. Ava Karlin and even Sadie Shore went down and got a couple of stops for us in the post. We were able to get clean possessions coming back to this end."

After taking a 13-7 lead midway through the second quarter, Portsmouth started to struggle to get good looks and Pelham was able to take advantage at the other end. The Pythons outscored the Clippers 7-0 to end the half and take a 15-13 lead into the third quarter.

But that lead didn't last long, as Portsmouth went on a 9-4 run to open the third, going up 22-19 on a 3-pointer by Olivia Couture. \

"In the first half, we had a bunch of empty possessions," Hopley said. "We didn’t get anything good down there. We rushed a lot of stuff, we didn’t get a lot of good looks, and then we had a couple of breakdowns (on defense). The second half, we got a few more decent looks. We moved the ball, we got some decent shots. Olivia (Couture) had a big 3 here in front of the bench and Corinne had a couple of hoops inside."

And as Portsmouth pulled away, Pelham was forced to pick up the pace at the other end and struggled to get points, finishing the final 2:38 without a point.

"I thought we could have been more patient on offense," Shepard said. "I thought we rushed it too much and there were a lot of times where one of our bigs had the ball and there were two of theirs on us. That’s almost an impossible task."