Two offensive spurts starting both halves faded, and with it, the Lincoln-Sudbury girls basketball team's hope of beginning the new season on a winning note.
But despite the Warriors' 68-56 loss to Dual County League-foe Westford Academy Friday night, coach Liza Feldman was pleased with how her youthful squad performed.
“With a fairly new team against a very strong team, I thought we held our own and it’s good for our kids to know that that was a winnable game,” she said. “It’s a great starting point.”
The Warriors, who graduated six seniors last year and have three freshmen on this season’s squad, blazed out to a 10-3 advantage to start the contest. During that stretch, junior Ashley Lutz scored five of her game-high 20 points.
But L-S quickly entered into foul trouble notching seven fouls while Westford had zero, and Lutz was forced to take a seat on the bench with two. That changed the momentum of the game and Westford went into halftime leading 42-28, thanks in large part to Hannah Hackley’s 12 points.
“The fouls in the first half were hurtful to us,” said Feldman. “We got ourselves in a bit of a hole.”
The pendulum swung back in the Warriors’ favor coming out of halftime. Ashley Lutz and her sister, Meghan, combined for 12 points before freshman Kristen Ngan drove for a lay-up tying the score at 42-42.
“I feel really proud the way the kids came back in the second half,” said Feldman. “And I think the new players weren’t so new anymore. And I thought we had a pretty solid second half.”
A Bailey Mongillo free throw at the 3:12 mark of the third quarter broke the Grey Ghosts’ second-half scoring drought and ignited a 12-5 run that was capped off by a Hackley lay-up. Hackley would finish with a team-high 19 points.
The Warriors attempted a comeback in the fourth quarter, and managed to close the deficit to 59-54 when Ashley Lutz drained a three-pointer from the right wing. But moments later, Hackley grabbed a rebound in the paint, and tallied a basket effectively sealing the victory.
“We got off to a slow start in the first half, a slow start in the second half, but they picked it up,” said Grey Ghosts assistant coach Bob Galokawitz, who took over for head coach Russ Coward, who was sick. “We put pressure on them and it really did a good job for us.”
