Walsh goes off late to push Goffstown girls basketball past Pinkerton

GOFFSTOWN - Anyone trying to gauge what Division I girls’ postseason hoops is going to look like this season likely had their sights set Friday on Goffstown.

While there wasn’t much in the way of new revelations from the Goffstown High School girls basketball team’s tilt with Pinkerton Academy to open the second half of the regular season, one thing remained obvious: Kelly Walsh won’t ever let the Grizzlies down.

Walsh, a frontrunner for D1 Player of the Year, overcame three quarters worth of shooting woes to drop 14 points over the final nine minutes of a 48-39 Goffstown win. Great defensive stands from Pinkerton’s Jesse Ames and Sam Franks held Walsh relatively in check before the senior, who finished with a game-high 27 points, found a second gear when her team needed her most down the stretch.

“It says that she’s worked on everything about her game,” Goffstown coach Steve Largy said of Walsh’s persistence. “She’s taken coaching really well for the last three years and sought to improve every facet of her game, which includes the mentality. That mental part of the game may be the hardest, but she and the rest of the girls keep fighting because they really want it.”

A peaks-and-valleys kind of night saw Goffstown (9-1) lose an 11-point edge to Pinkerton (6-3) early in the third quarter before Walsh and the Grizzlies took off. After Pinkerton jumped ahead by one with 2:51 to go in the third, Walsh and Shannon Gifford orchestrated an 11-2 run between the third and fourth quarter to stake Goffstown to a 37-29 lead and all but seal the win. Walsh’s long-range 3-pointer as the clock ticked down in the third quarter was a clear momentum swinger.

“Kelly Walsh. I mean, come on,” Pinkerton coach Lani Buskey said. “She’s a top player in this league and might even be the Player of the Year. Our idea with her was with Jesse Ames, but she got into foul trouble. Sam Franks was a great ‘Option B’ and did as good a job as you can do with it, but Kelly is just so good.”

Goffstown got seven points from Emma Strong and six from Gifford to back up Walsh’s efforts. Avah Ingalls posted 16 points for Pinkerton, which also got six apiece from Ames and Sofia Riccio.

Walsh’s trey to end the third wasn’t quite a dagger for Pinkerton, which trailed 33-29 entering the fourth. The real slipup came when the Astros turned the ball over on three of their first four possessions in the fourth quarter.

“We know we are growing and learning this year,” said Buskey, whose Astros look vastly different in terms of personnel from the teams that went to the D1 final in 2018 and the semifinals last season. “You make a little change and this is a game we can win. Like I said to them, this is a loss that is painful because it could be a win. It’s not like we’re walking out of the gym saying ‘they killed us.’ We kind of hurt ourselves.”

The errors Pinkerton owned up to weren’t completely self-inflicted. Goffstown put on a stingy half-court zone defense for much of the game that forced the Astros to play a perimeter game versus its preference of getting to the basket. The Grizzlies trapped and moved with the ball when it was outside but packed the paint when Pinkerton did find a seam.

“We knew we were going to have to keep it tight on the inside and avoid giving them what they wanted in the paint,” Largy said. “We contested shooters while doing that, too, which is important moving forward against any opponent. We’re not going to be the tallest team as we keep going here, so we need to learn to play like that.”