Bulldogs hold off Grizzlies here

Friday, January 8, 2010

By Matt Lordan

Correspondent

Bedford – It’s easy enough to call Class I Bedford High School’s 61-58 girls’ basketball victory over Class L Goffstown on Tuesday night an impressive upset, but it had less to do with divisional classifications and more to do with the skill and composure the young Bulldog team showed in hanging with the veteran Grizzlies.

Visiting Goffstown might have five seniors on their team, but they were outdone by Bedford sophomore Katherine Prothro, who led all scorers with 18 points. Junior Molly McGown added 14 points, which matched the output of Goffstown’s top two scorers, seniors Leana Berube and Ashley Barss.

That’s not to say the Bulldogs were without senior leadership, it’s simply that it all came from the team’s sole senior, Demi Bennett.

“Our senior did a great job for us tonight,” said Bedford coach Scott Sarsfield of Bennett, who added eight points herself. “She did a great job of some of those fundamental things – playing good defense underneath, pressuring the ball when she needed to, just keeping her head on her shoulders and just being smart.”

Perhaps most surprising of all was that Bedford dominated the first half, outscoring the Grizzlies 19-9 in the second quarter to go into halftime with a 14-point lead at 35-21. Casey Levis set the tone early with three steals in the first four minutes of the game, stifling the visitors’ offense. By the half, McGown already had 11 points, and Prothro 10.

“She was real big, controlling the basketball for us, just doing the little things,” Sarsfield said of Prothro.

Unsurprisingly, Goffstown did come back in the second half, but it had less to do with Bedford’s youth collapsing under the pressure and more to do with inspired play by the Grizzlies. Abigail Riedel scored all seven of her points in a sparkplug second-half performance.

Yet each time the Grizzlies appeared poised to overtake Bedford, someone stepped up to respond. Coming out of the half, Goffstown got a steal, a basket from Berube, and then a steal from Berube that led to 3-pointer from Barss to quickly cut the Bulldog’s lead to just eight, but Prothro responded to Barss’ three by nailing one of her own immediately afterward. Early in the fourth quarter, Goffstown had their deficit down to just four with a shot at cutting it to two, before Levis made a steal and sent Prothro away for an easy layup.

McGown hit two clutch free throws late to up the Bedford lead to six points, which Berube then cut in half with a three-pointer at the final buzzer.

The game also featured two odd baskets. Bedford’s Hayley Barnard put up a shot that sat on the back of the rim for a long enough period of time for spectators to ponder what the rule is if the ball never comes down, before it eventually fell in. Barss, who had already hit two 3-pointers for Goffstown, sank a third three in the final minute of the game, but it was ruled that it went in off the top of the backboard and was disallowed.