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Colby's free throws send Lawrence to quarters

Tuesday, March, 08 By Jeff Hamrick

CONCORD — The Londonderry boys once again are headed to the Division 1 state quarterfinals, but this year’s road came dangerously close to ending an exit early.

After squandering every bit of a 13-point fourth-quarter lead the seventh-seeded Lancers needed a pair of free throws by Mike Colby over the final 42 seconds to hold off hard-charging, defending-state champion Pinkerton for a 55-53 victory at New Hampshire Technical Institute.

Advancing to the quarterfinals for the seventh consecutive year, the Lancers (13-9) will play at second-seeded Trinity (16-3) at 7 p.m. Friday.

But the Lancers came close to blowing a game they controlled the first three quarters, leading by as many as 17 late in the third. Colby made one of two free throws with 41.9 seconds left and again with 11.3 remaining for two of the seven points Londonderry scored over the final 10 minutes.

“If I were to say (the Astros) weren’t going to make a run, I’d be lying,” Londonderry coach jeff Gustavson said. “They have good players. They have tough kids on that team. But it’s a rival game, they aren’t going to back down.

“Like I told my guys at halftime, the only thing we did (in the first half) was beat down their pride. And they came out and played like they had nothing to lose. I thought we stopped doing some of the things we did well that got us the lead.”

Pinkerton, which led only once for 18 seconds in the opening quarter, tied the score at 53 on a free throw by Alex Pacocha with 1:09 left. But the Astros (10-12) missed jump shots on its final two possessions, including a desperation 3 by Chad Park as time expired. Pinkerton’s last chance was set up after a timeout with 6.4 seconds left following Colby’s final free throw.

“We wanted to come off the screen,” Pinkerton coach Peter Rosinski said of the final play’s design. “We said we’d get two if we could get it, but if you can’t get two, we’ll get the three. It wasn’t exactly what we wanted. We broke down a little bit. We really wanted to push the ball below the foul line, but we got caught up top.”

Colby ignited the Lancers early, scoring 14 points in the first half and 20 of his team-high 22 through three. The last of his four 3-pointers gave Londonderry a 48-31 lead with 2:08 left in the third. That’s when Pinkerton woke up, using 17-2 run to cut the deficit to two when Chris Light scored three of his game-high 23 on a trey with 4:01 left. The Astros outscored the Lancers 22-5 over the game’s final 9:30.

“We thought we could go down low on them or push it to the basket,” Rosinski said. “At least that was our goal, but we weren’t successful at the beginning of the game. In the second half, we started to go inside more. I told them (at halftime) we have the whole half, we’re not going to make (the deficit) up in a couple minutes ... I said we’d catch up to them in the end.”