Souhegan girls basketball rallies in 2nd half to beat Derryfield (video)

MANCHESTER - The Souhegan High School girls basketball team had a few extra days to prepare for Friday night's game against the Derryfield School.

The Sabers used that time wisely.

Souhegan tweaked its game plan, and while it took a little while to execute it, the Sabers started to regroup midway through the second quarter before taking the lead in the third on the way to a 38-33 win over the Cougars in a Division II contest.

Brynn Siska led Souhegan (6-3) with 11 points and Nayaa Dineshkumar added nine points and grabbed 15 rebounds, as the Sabers outscored Derryfield 17-3 over a six-minute stretch that spanned the middle of the game, turning a 10-point deficit into a four-point lead.

“We had a week to prepare for this game and we put in some things that we normally don’t do,” Souhegan coach Greg Cotreau said. “Stuff that we just started practicing this week, and I thought they executed everything almost exactly how we scripted it for them.”

The Sabers' style is a little more up-tempo, but against a Derryfield team that's led by its guards, Cotreau felt that might be more to the Cougars' advantage.

“With Anna Fazelat and Holly Dufoe, they have two of the best guards in the division,” he said. “You press, you get burned, you’re giving up layups at the other end. We really just tried to plug gaps and tried to take away driving lanes, and I thought we did a really good job of that.”

Fazelat led Derryfield (7-2) with eight points, before fouling out in the final 90 seconds, while Dufoe, Emma Sloper and Angie Kenison each had seven points.

The Cougars held a 5-2 lead at the end of the first quarter, after both teams were scoreless for the final four minutes of the frame, but seemed to come to life offensively to open the second. Derryfield went on an 11-4 run, going up 16-6 on a basket by Kenison midway through the quarter.

But for the next eight minutes, the Cougars would score just three points.

“We get ourselves in trouble when we play the way the other team wants us to play instead of the playing how we want to play,” Derryfield coach Courtney Cheetham said. “I thought Souhegan did a really good job of getting us to play how they want to play.”

Souhegan trailed 19-15 going into halftime, but an 8-0 run to open the third, with Siska and Dineshkumar each scoring twice, put the Sabers up 23-19.

Derryfield answered with five straight points to retake a one-point lead with 2:50 to go in the quarter, but another 8-0 run by Souhegan gave it a 31-24 lead with 6:40 remaining.

The Cougars hung around, as Fazelat hit a 3-pointer and then converted a steal into a transition basket to help Derryfield make it a two-point game with 1:40 to play. Fazelat came up with another steal to give the Cougars a chance to tie, but instead, the sophomore picked up her fifth foul with 1:05 remaining.

Still down two, Dufoe had a chance to tie the game moments later, but missed the second of two free throws to keep the Sabers up, 33-32. Souhegan did enough over the final minute to hang on for the win.