Milford girls basketball hangs on to beat Winnacunnet, win Nashua North Holiday Classic

NASHUA – All the Milford High School girls basketball team needed was a little patience.

The Spartans got out to a big lead in the first half and stayed calm whenever Winnacunnet cut into it, hanging on for a 47-41 win over the Warriors to win Sunday’s championship game at the Nashua North Holiday Classic.

Jessica Ryan scored all of her 13 points in the first half, including three 3-pointers, and Adelle Pitsas added 10 points, with two 3s, as the Spartans took out a Division I team for the second time in as many games. Milford defeated Nashua North 54-49 in the semifinals the night before.

“Some teams I think grow through losses, but this team seems to grow through winning, which is great,” Milford first-year coach Rich Parent said. “We’re senior heavy, with a couple of sophomores, and they’ve been there before and they’re really hungry.”

Winnacunnet got 19 points from Margaret Knollmeyer, as all seven of her field goals came from inside the paint, and Molly Britton was also in double figures, scoring 11 points with three 3-pointers.

But the Warriors struggled at times against Milford’s defense, turning the ball over 15 times.

“It’s little fundamentals that go away when you’re not playing so well and when you’re tired,” Winnacunnet coach Cassie Turcotte said. “It seemed like we had a lot of turnovers. It was a trend for us throughout the game.”

Milford got out to a 10-3 lead to open the first quarter, but the Warriors closed the first quarter on a 9-3 run to make it a one-point game after one.

Knollmeyer scored Winnacunnet’s first eight points of the second to put the Warriors on top for the first time, 20-18, and a putback by Emily Britton made it 22-20 Winnacunnet with 3:38 left before halftime.

But the Spartans had an answer, as Pitsas (two) and Ryan made back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers in just 65 seconds to put Milford up 29-24, prompting Turcotte to use a timeout.

“They scored nine points in, what, a minute?” she said. “That really took the wind out of our sails. That took us back a step and we were struggling to regain our confidence from that point.”

Milford added layups by Devany Pitsas and Erin McGuire to go into halftime up 33-24, completing a 15-4 run for the Spartans.

“It was absolutely big,” Parent said. “The difference was our patience. There were defensive lapses in their ability to be patient and our shooters made shots.”

The Spartans led by as many as 14 in the fourth quarter before the Warriors started to come back.

Milford took a 45-31 lead on a layup by Devany Pitsas with 3:27 to go, but Winnacunnet answered right away with a basket by Knollmeyer. The sophomore added a three-point play after that and scored all nine points on a 9-0 run by the Warriors that cut the lead to 45-40 with 44 seconds left.

But the lead proved to be too much, and Milford was able to hang on for the tournament win.

“It’s huge,” Parent said. “One of the things I told them when we came here, we wanted to be able to play that level of competition. Until this tournament, we hadn’t played that level and this gave us the ability to measure ourselves.”