First it was Alex Larrabee, who received a stolen pass and turned it into an easy layup.
Larrabee converted another stolen pass into a deuce bucket from midrange.
Madison Speckman then got her points, a drive to the basket for a routine layup, again both from steals and forced turnovers.
The first three minutes into the second quarter, the Bow High girls’ basketball team rattled off nine straight points with an energy that lasted the entire game as the Falcons defeated visiting Souhegan, 51-17, in their season opener on Tuesday night.
It was noticeable from the opening tipoff that the Falcons were going to rely on their athleticism and pressure the Sabers into making quick-think decisions all the while with hands in their faces. Bow implemented its full-court press after it scored the first basket of the game, and the press didn’t stop until the lead was sizable enough to work a half-court defense instead.
The Falcons trapped Souhegan players trying to receive the inbound pass, and if it wasn’t stolen or knocked out of bounds, it took all five on the court to get the ball onto the other end of the gym and get some offense going. While the defense was highly energized, that intensity caused the offense to suffer as the missed layups began to add up.
“I think sometimes we get a little frantic on the full-court press, and there are moments where we need to get calm and collected,” Larrabee said.
“We have really good guards, and we know when to settle down,” Speckman added. “Coach says we have to stop, we can back to the top and we can just reset.”
Reset is precisely what happened. The aforementioned nine points to open the third quarter paved the way for a 29-point second half. And not only was it driven by the starters, but the bench as well: Juliette Tarsa scored 10 of her team-high 18 points in the final two quarters.
After watching Tuesday’s performance, second-year Bow coach Phil Davis realizes he has a few good problems on his hands with the team he has. “I think we’re pretty good all the way through,” he said. “I think I have eight starters on my team, so it’ll be different personnel all the time. It won’t be the same five all the time, so depending on who we’re playing, the personnel will change.”
The Falcons will get a chance to see just how good they are when they make the 62-mile trip northwest to play Hanover on Thursday. Hanover has two wins to its name, with a 39-point victory over ConVal and a 30-point defeat of Pembroke. Tipoff for Thursday’s game is slated for 7 p.m.