RallyNorth.net

Lumb, Knights break open, rip Wilmington

Sunday, March, 06 By Dave Dyer
Staff writer

NORTH ANDOVER — Fortunately for North Andover, Morgan Lumb is not lacking in confidence.
So when she scored a mere two points in a 32-16 opening-round Division 2 North victory last week, she wasn’t overly concerned.
“Everyone has a bad game every once in a while,” said Lumb. “I wasn’t worried. I just had to get back out there and get some open shots.”
That lack of concern proved well founded yesterday afternoon as Lumb drilled four 3-pointers and scored 21 points to pace the Knights to a much-more impressive 51-35 victory over Wilmington.
The victory improves North Andover to 18-4 and advances it to Thursday’s North semifinals at Billerica against rugged Arlington Catholic.
“Earlier in the year, I didn’t know if this was possible,” admitted North Andover coach Sue Breen. “But the girls have gotten more and more confident and we’ve had a lot of girls lead us. No one girl has to do it for us.”
Indeed, while Lumb paced the offense, the Knights got plenty of contributions from everyone, particularly in an impressive first half in which they zoomed to an early 8-0 lead, held a 10-5 advantage after the first quarter and were ahead comfortably, 29-13 at halftime.
Amanda Foote, for example, had five of her eight steals, helping force 17 Wilmington turnivers in the first half, Caitlin Enright had five points and five rebounds, Julia Titone was 3 for 4 from the floor and Erika Zahoruiko was a defensive presence down low.
“Our defense sets the tone and it did in the first half,” said Breen. “Amanda has been doing that all year and we pride ourselves on our defense.
“I always tell them that if we get to 50 (offensively), good things are going to happen because our defense will take care of the rest.”
Behind physical 6-foot junior Maggie Brown, Wilmington did make one brief run at the start of the second half to move to within eight, 31-23, but a Pam Coufos jumper, a Lumb 3-pointer and a Zahoruiko jumper quickly put the lead back at 15 and the Wildcats never recovered.
Wilmington could never get any offensive consistency and its leading scorer, Amanda Keane, had just eight points. In three losses to North Andover this year, the Wildcats scored 37, 38 and 35 points.
Breen knows that the Knights will need to be at its very best defensively against an Arlington Catholic team that bounced the Knights out of the tournament last year and has crushed its first two tourney foes.