East Girls Hoops Tops Gritty Lindy

So good for so long, the Sachem East girls basketball team has so rarely been involved in a back-and-forth, push-and-shove League I tussle. Arrows coach Matt Brisson knew this year, with a group as young as this, that this season might be different.

Fellow unbeaten Lindenhurst, new to the league this year, gave Sachem everything it could handle Tuesday night. What this Arrows squad proved is that it could handle the pressure.

East clenched its teeth and played its best hoops late in the game, erasing a deficit to hold off the Bulldogs, 56-51, Wednesday night at home. Behind a standout effort from junior Meagan Doherty, Sachem, which has just one senior on the roster, passed one of the stiffest tests it’s been faced with all season.

“I love my kids,” Brisson said. “I think one of the things that the kids in the past did was establish the tradition and the reputation of success that’s expected of this team. They’ve upheld that standard very nicely. It’s good to be tested like this, win or lose.”

No stranger to big-game situations after last year’s run to the state title, Doherty’s leadership shined through with the outcome in doubt. The junior scored 10 of her season-high point total in the fourth quarter, but as importantly, she registered 10 rebounds and was a force on the defensive end as well.

“She has that special quality of leadership that you have to possess to get out of those pressure spots,” Brisson said. “She has value similar to her sister in that, even without the ball, in some other way she helps the team possession by possession.”

East (7-1, 6-0) trailed by a point with 3:43 to go, a feeling foreign to a team that has rarely been challenged in League I in recent years. However, the young Arrows looked plenty polished down the stretch. Freshman Kathleen Everson sank an eight-footer in the paint to put East up 43-42, and after Meagan Doherty collected a defensive rebound, she dribbled up the right side and fired crosscourt to Emily Carmel. The sophomore calmly buried a three-pointer from the corner with a defender in her face, bumping the Arrows’ lead to four.

Although Lindy never led or was even after the Carmel three, it stayed right on the hosts’ heels. Sachem had to win the game from the free throw line, and that it did. Over the final 1:33, Meagan Doherty, Katie Doherty and Allie Drake combined to go 8 for 10 from the stripe.

East appeared it might pull away in the second quarter, holding Lindenhurst (8-2, 5-1) without a field goal for the quarter’s first five minutes. The Arrows opened up a 10-point lead with under a minute left when Allie Drake put back a missed free throw. However, it was their only double-digit edge all night as Lindy’s Colleen Ames drained a long three to send the Bulldogs into the locker rooms trailing 29-22.

Both sides went cold in the third quarter, but Lindenhurst clawed its way back into the contest, and when Nicole Intrieri drilled an elbow jumper at the 1:04 mark, the Bulldogs had their first lead of the night at 36-35. The score was knotted at 36 through three quarters.

“As a team, they might have hit more threes this season than we have,” Brisson said. “When you hit from deep range, you’re never out of a game. You can have an eight-point lead and they can hit a couple threes and it’s a one-possession game. They spread the floor well and kick the ball to get open looks.”

However, Sachem responded and kept its streak alive. Lindy gets another crack at the Arrows on Feb. 11 on its home court.

“It’s going to be a war,” Brisson said. “They were very well prepared tonight. They knew our stuff inside and out.”