{"id":12170,"date":"2024-03-08T11:33:16","date_gmt":"2024-03-08T11:33:16","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"CCA-Pembroke-Championship-Preview-54306830\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=12170","title":{"rendered":"Girls\u2019 basketball: No. 1 Concord Christian, No. 3 Pembroke prepare to do battle for the Division II title on Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Annelise
Annelise Dexter dribbles toward the basket for Pembroke during the D-II semifinal against Laconia on March 6.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Emma
Emma Smith races to the hoop during the Division II semifinal against John Stark on March 6. Smith led the Kingsmen with 27 points in the 68-50 win.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>

When Pembroke faced off against Concord Christian on Jan. 30, both teams were unbeaten.\u00a0The Spartans led 51-50 with 6:15 remaining in the game but didn\u2019t score again for over five minutes, as CCA stormed ahead to a 65-55 victory.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, the two teams will meet again at UNH, this time with a Division II championship on the line. The Kingsmen\u00a0(19-1) won the Division IV title in 2022 and the Division III title last year; this is their only year playing in Division II before moving up to Division I next season.<\/p>\n

Both teams have top players to watch \u2014\u00a0senior Annelise Dexter for Pembroke (18-3)\u00a0and sophomore Emma Smith for CCA \u2014 but both teams also have considerable versatility, with several other players who can knock down shots. In Wednesday\u2019s semifinal win over Laconia, Pembroke freshman Anne Phillips scored 11 points and junior\u00a0Kaitlin Arenella had eight; in the Spartans\u2019 quarterfinal win against Bow, sophomore Kate Stephens turned in a 17-point performance. Meanwhile, CCA\u2019s Lilli Carlile scored 19 points in the team\u2019s victory over John Stark in the semifinals, after leading the team with 18 in its quarterfinal win over Derryfield. Sophomore\u00a0Kayden Rioux\u00a0also knocked down four 3-pointers in that Derryfield win.<\/p>\n

In other words, it\u2019ll take more than each team trying to eliminate one notable\u00a0player in order to emerge victorious.<\/p>\n

The biggest key for Pembroke, though, will be to try to slow down the Kingsmen offense that likes to race the ball up the floor. Against John Stark, CCA built a 7-0 lead in the first 55 seconds and a 13-2 lead less than three minutes into the game. Digging that deep of a hole early is a recipe for disaster against a team as skilled as the Kingsmen.<\/p>\n

On the other side, CCA will look to try to force the Spartans into rushing shots. One of the best parts of Wednesday\u2019s win, Pembroke head coach Steve Langevin said, was his offense\u2019s patience with the ball. It\u2019s a theme that\u2019s persisted throughout the season for the\u00a0 Spartans and one of the big reasons they advanced to play for a title.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just don\u2019t really get nervous,\u201d Langevin said after the win over Laconia. \u201cWe had a couple little 10-second blips there of being a little rushed, so we called time, but overall, I thought we executed very well on both ends.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was a really good, solid game for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

CCA head coach Rebecca Carlile was similarly pleased with her team\u2019s semifinal performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just proud of them,\u201d she said. \u201cI think that was a great team win. Emma had a phenomenal game. Lilli played great. Taylor (Rioux) played great. Defensively, Kate (Smith) was unbelievable down low. I just think it was a great team win overall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both CCA and Pembroke have already had phenomenal seasons, and each coach hopes their mix of veterans and younger players can pave the way for a state title.<\/p>\n

\u201cConcord Christian\u2019s been in tournaments since they were in eighth grade, so they\u2019re young, but they\u2019re very tournament-seasoned,\u201d Langevin said.\u00a0\u201cOur younger kids really aren\u2019t, but\u00a0they\u2019ve performed very well so far. Pretty exciting.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Pembroke faced off against Concord Christian on Jan. 30, both teams were unbeaten.\u00a0The Spartans led 51-50 with 6:15 remaining in the game but didn\u2019t score again for over five minutes, as CCA stormed ahead to a 65-55 victory.On Sunday, the two…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":188,"featured_media":12171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":true,"_newspack_byline":"by [Author id=188]Eric Rynston-Lobel[\/Author] Monitor staff","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,508],"tags":[87,24,505,274],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[533],"class_list":["post-12170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-top-headlines-cm","tag-concord-christian-academy","tag-facebook","tag-paywall","tag-pembroke-academy","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/43105460-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/188"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12172,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12170\/revisions\/12172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12170"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=12170"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=12170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}