Central Girls VS Dover Playoffs - Round One

The Girls will be playing tonight. The district made an exception to its cancellation policy for the tourney.

7PM Simon Gym.

To quote the CHS girls...

Take the D out of Dover... and it's over!!!!
(crossing my fingers because this year's Central squad is comprised of some of the finest young women !)

Central girls were upset by Dover today and lost by 4 or 5

Sammy Walker went down hard and may have a serious knee injury.

Memorial beat Trinity 43 - 41.

Trinity had the ball in their offensive end with 20 seconds left in the game and the score tied at 41. Trinity was working the ball at the top of the key when sophmore Amra Ehlozovic tipped a Pioneer pass with 10 seconds to go, gathered the ball near mid court and dribbled the length of the court and finished a layup under defensive pressure with 2 seconds left to give the Crusaderettes the thrilling 43 to 41 victory.

Jasmine Theroux and Emily Marrow had great games for Trinity. They probably combined for at least 26 to 30 of the 41 Trinity points. Trinity shot the ball very well from the 3 point area. It was amazing that Memorial was within 10 at halftime with the way Trinity shot from the outside in the first half. Trinity pushed their lead to about 14 in the 3rd when Memorial threw an effective full court press against the Pioneers. Freshman Allie Hartford and junior Ashley Gendron lead the way creating turnovers and getting Trinity flustered with the turnovers. Even though Trinity continued to shoot the ball well in the second half their oppurtunities to shoot were decreased by the turnovers Memorial created off the press and a deliberate style offense instituted by the Crusaders that made Trinity work harder on defense and limited the time the Pioneers would have the ball for offensive possession. Memorial received a balanced scoring attack with Hartford, Gendron, Leonard and Ehlozovic leading the way. Senior Megan Allard had some big contributions including a big FT to tie the game at 41 - 41 with under 30 seconds to go. A big victory for the Crusaderettes and now a quarterfinal date with the tough #2 seed Pinkerton on Thursday.

Tully, a girl's coach told me this week he wouldn't be surprised to see Dover give Central a tough game and even pull the upset because Dover had been playing well as of late. They had won 2 out of their last 3 and only lost to #2 seed Pinkerton by 5 and #3 seed Londonderry by 4.

At what point of the game did Sam Walker go down with the injury?

4th quarter during the comeback... she was really the key player out there in white tonight.....

Had she not gone down... and it's not anyone's fault..... could have been different.

Her shots were strong tonight as was her penetration.

You don't want to see anyone go out of a game for such a reason... but Sammy wow.... that kind of killed my hope.

Dover played well ... I commend them for that... but I have seen A LOT of CHS girls teams and I love them all... I was texting game updates to Whitney Fremeau through most of the night.... but this year's TEAM was something special as a group.

I hope at some point they will see that even though they didn't bring a banner home they have served our school well with grace and pride.

That's too bad for Walker. First you had Mahoney's knee injury last week and now Walker's. They are both special players. I really like Mahoney's overall game and toughness. I'm sad she won't be able to finish her career in the playoffs. If Ruffin wasn't on Winny Mahoney would be a viable POY candidate. Central fans always wanted Walker to score more to compliment Bakolas. I think she did that this year which made Central a tougher team to play as Winny can atest to. I had the pleasure of having one of the 2 best standing seats in the house to watch the Little Green Girls operate in a summer league game. I was very impressed by them. Their tenacity and toughness was something to see. Bakolas is a special talent that can control a game with not only scoring, but rebounding, steals, hustle, decisions and the will to win. They are a special group and they should hold their heads high even though they can't look forward to their "next game."

I had central as the big obstacle for winny, even with the mahoney injury.
I don't see anybody else til the finals being a tough game.

I'm thinking when the Winny contingent received the news of the Central upset they had to be pleased that the Little Green wasn't alive in their bracket any more. It is very unusual to see a #13 seed advance in the girl's L bracket into the quarterfinals. Most years the L girls is very vanilla in what seeds advance. Londonderry is hosting Merrimack tonight in the 3 vs 14 game and if the Lancers win then the top 8 seeds advance to the quarterfinals with the exception of #4 Central.

The #2 Pinkerton victory over #15 Salem had quite an ending. Pinkerton trailed the whole game until the waning seconds of the game. They were down by 9 with 1:30 left in the game and made a furious comeback to win the game. Pinkerton coach John Barry made a statement that was probably the line of the night:

"We were in desperate straits"

Down by 9 with 1:30 to go in your home gym as the #2 seed playing the #15 seed? I think that's accurate.

I think Winny wanted the challenge...

I know they were VERY supportive and kind to the CHS girls last night.

Nice to see that part of the game.

Down by 9 with 1:30 left? Did salem just stand there and not play anymore? wow!

Rally north posts that salem went 0-6 in the final minute from the free throw line. ouch!

If you go 0 - 6 from the FT line in the last minute of a playoff game then I guess you don't deserve to get a victory.

Good news of a sort...

Sammy Walker (they think) only pulled ligaments. She'll have more tests Wed but the prognosis is MUCH better than early reports.

Any thoughts on the Dover /Keene game?

Keene is favored with Cammie Warner. I saw her play earlier in the year. She's certainly a POY candidate. She has plus plus moves in the paint and when she gets fouled she knocks down the FTs. I think she had a big game in their prelim victory with about 24. dover will have a tough time with her. Central is smaller and I think this partly played into the dover upset last Monday. Keene also has Ashley Clough. she's big and physical too. Dover is playing very good ball right now and is shooting well. It will come down to Keene's size and imposing their will in the paint versus Dover's ability to shoot the ball. I'll take the paint power along with Cammie Warner in this one.

I haven't seen Dover play, but I have seen Keene a few times. I have been very impressed with the Clough girl and I think she is only a soph.

Yes, Clough is one of the best sophomores in the state.