By Max Clifford
Hometown Weekly Reporter
The second game of a three-game road stint pitted Dover-Sherborn High School’s varsity girls’ basketball team against a white hot, non-conference opponent in Norwell. Winners of 10 straight entering last Monday night, the Clippers lived up to their record, handing the Raiders a 60-40 defeat.
Flexing their strength underneath, Norwell opened the game on an 8-2 run. That lead, however, dwindled to three when Dover-Sherborn’s Elliana Scalabrine beat the first quarter buzzer with a shot from three-point range.
Norwell’s Madison Oliver opened the second quarter with a three of her own, but Scalabrine was quick to match it, knocking down her second triple in 1:30 of game time. A 7-0 run put the Clippers out in front 18-8, but Erica Hills went to work at all three levels to keep the Raiders within striking distance. She scored the final basket of the half to cut their deficit to 24-18.
A busy first minute of the second half saw the Raiders cut the score to 26-22, the tightest it had been since 11-8. Norwell, however, had a response ready to go. A 16-3 run for the Clippers stretched the advantage to 42-25 with three minutes to play in the third.
Norwell pushed the lead to 20 points with under a minute to play in the third and that is where it stayed for most of the final quarter. The Clippers closed out their 11th straight victory by a final score of 60-40.
After the loss, Dover-Sherborn head coach Kanee Chlebda, who had just eight players dressed on Monday, emphasized the importance of balanced scoring from her rotation. “We have to get more people involved,” she said. “To win games you can’t have two people scoring. Not everybody has to score 20 points but at the end of the night the book has to have multiple people scoring.”
When assessing her team’s needs for the second game of their back-to-back, Chlebda discussed her team’s energy and excitement, as well as the need to “get up” for every game on their schedule. It is safe to say that that message resonated with the Raiders, who hit the road the next night and brought home a dominant 51-7 victory over Bellingham. Dover-Sherborn will look to sweep a pair of season series with Dedham and Norton on Friday
and Tuesday, respectively, before closing out the season with a chance at redemption against Norwell on their home court.
