BOW – Beating the No. 1 Bow Falcons (19-0) is hard enough; beating them after digging yourself a 16-2 hole makes it virtually impossible. Such was the case on Saturday night for No. 8 Pembroke (14-6) in the Division II quarterfinal that saw the Falcons beat the Spartans for the third time this season, 57-36.
The 36 points allowed was one shy from tying the most points Bow’s lock-down defense had allowed all season. And the Falcons still won by 21.
Fittingly, the game began with a steal from Bow junior Juliette Tarsa; it was one of eight turnovers the Falcons forced in the first six minutes of action, allowing them to open up a 16-2 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Pembroke found some offense in the second, at one point cutting the deficit to 12, but trailed 34-17 at the break. The Spartans wouldn’t come any closer the rest of the way.
Tarsa led all scorers in the game with 19 points; Bow senior Alex Larrabee added 17 of her own as well as seven rebounds, including six on the offensive glass. Bella LaPerle had nine points and five assists, while Lyndsey LaPerle had six points and five steals.
“The start was key,” Bow head coach Phil Davis said. “And open looks without hands in your face definitely helps. We rotated the ball really well tonight.”
The Falcons also brought the intensity, even after an 11-day layoff since their last game. There was no rust to speak of at any point throughout the evening.
“We showed up and played the way we normally play. The intensity level of my top five is pretty high, and it can rattle anybody,” Davis said. “Our pressing, we threw three different ones at them, and we had some success with each of them, so that’s always helpful to get us going because we’re not great shooters. So if we can get layups, that’s always better.”
For the Spartans, Annelise Dexter was the only player in double figures with 16 points. The junior had dealt with an illness throughout the week and wasn’t 100% but still turned in a strong performance.
The loss ended a promising season for a young Pembroke team that only has one senior on this year’s roster. This was by no means the end of successful run; this was likely just the beginning.
“This wasn’t a devastating loss for them,” Pembroke head coach Steve Langevin said. “They came in thinking they had a chance to win and were gonna try for it, but if they didn’t, everybody in the world thinks you’re going to lose. … It’s stuff to build on. They see what a championship level team is, and I know how hard (Bow) works in practice, and we talked about how we need to foster that a little bit more on our own if they want to get to where they’re at.”
Saturday was the Spartans’ sixth loss of the season. Three of them came against Bow, and two of the others came against Kennett and Pelham, the second- and third-place teams in D-II.
Either way, it was undoubtedly a successful 2022-23 season for Langevin’s team considering the level of uncertainty and inexperience with which the program entered the season. Pembroke thought it had a shot to take down Bow, but it just couldn’t quite execute the game plan.
“We knew we had to play our best today,” Langevin said. “We didn’t play our very best today. We played OK; at times we played really well. But we knew we had to have our A game to actually defeat them. They outplayed us. And they should. They’re better than we are. I just told our group that we’re very excited about how well we did this year.”
So while Pembroke starts thinking ahead for how it can reach Bow’s level of success next season, the Falcons will start preparing to face No. 5 Laconia in Wednesday’s semifinal at Sanborn High School. Bow won the only meeting between the two teams this season on Jan. 18, 40-28. The 12-point margin of victory was tied for the second-narrowest the Falcons have had in their 19 games.
But if Bow replicates what it did on Saturday night, Davis’ team will put itself in strong position to win. When the guards defend like they did against Pembroke and hit open shots, they’re almost impossible to stop.