{"id":9231,"date":"2024-01-06T11:34:10","date_gmt":"2024-01-06T11:34:10","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"Concord-Girls-Basketball-Spaulding-53553264\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=9231","title":{"rendered":"Girls\u2019 basketball: Concord dominates Spaulding from the opening tip, cruises to a 38-point victory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Concord
Concord guard Whitney Vaillant drives through two Spaulding defenders during the first half on Friday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Concord
Concord guard Delaney Duford draws an offensive foul against Spaulding guard Anna Stanley during the first half on Friday night, January 5, 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Concord
Concord center Sofia Payne goes up strong for a shot during the fourth quarter on Friday night, January 5, 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Concord
Concord center Sofia Payne gets fouled by Spaulding forward Kate McCawley during the fourth quarter on Friday night, January 5, 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>

CONCORD \u2013\u00a0Although it was a matchup with 0-5 Spaulding, Concord head coach Rob Darrell viewed Friday night as one of his team\u2019s most important games of the season.<\/p>\n

Entering\u00a01-3 off a tough loss to Keene on Monday, the Tide needed a win at home to steady the ship, and that\u2019s exactly what it\u00a0delivered, dismantling Spaulding, 52-14.<\/p>\n

Senior Delaney Duford led the Tide with 13 points, with fellow senior Whitney Vaillant adding 12 and junior Jillian Nailor scoring eight.<\/p>\n

Here are three notes on where the Tide sit as the first week of January wraps up:<\/p>\n

Darrell notes improvements defensively<\/h2>\n

Anytime a team holds its opponent to 14 points over 32 minutes, it\u2019s doing something right defensively. While Spaulding had its fair share of self-inflicted errors, Concord also did a solid job blocking shots, forcing turnovers and making things difficult for the Red Raiders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re starting to understand the little things,\u201d Darrell said. \u201cWe\u2019re teaching them more boxing out, how to keep the ball to one side of the floor, how to angle better, how to pop back better. Still making a lot of mistakes, but everybody\u2019s starting to understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darrell also credited the team having the chance to play in the Capital Classic over the holiday break for helping them\u00a0continue to progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was huge because we didn\u2019t play great,\u201d he said of the Tide\u2019s games with Pembroke and Merrimack Valley. \u201cNot to take away from Pembroke or MV;\u00a0both of them were coached well and they played well, but I\u2019m glad we had that instead of having a break. I think we\u2019re playing a little tougher, a little better. It was good for us to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coach communication paying dividends<\/h2>\n

Now in his second year as the girls\u2019 varsity coach, Darrell\u2019s continued to hone his ability communicating\u00a0with his players. Last year when the Tide started the season 3-5, he said he felt he wasn\u2019t doing his best to connect and get his messages across.<\/p>\n

That piece has since become a focus for him, and it wasn\u2019t uncommon on Friday night to see Darrell talking with players individually on the floor during free throws and other breaks in the action.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been doing this a long time, and the bottom line is, old-school coaching isn\u2019t the norm nowadays,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m learning to adjust to that, and it\u2019s working out. Plus, a lot of these girls, the seniors I\u2019ve had since seventh grade. They\u2019re like basketball daughters. We learn each other, we feed off each other really well. \u2026 It\u2019s a respect thing back and forth, and once you get respect then they play hard for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tough schedule awaits a team with playoff hopes<\/h2>\n

Last season, Concord won five of its last six games to sneak into the playoffs. This year, Darrell\u2019s hoping they take a less stressful route. But upcoming matchups with Goffstown (4-1), Bedford (5-0), Pinkerton (4-0) and Portsmouth (3-1) will all pose difficult challenges.<\/p>\n

Carrying the good taste of Friday\u2019s win should only provide some confidence, though, that perhaps the Tide can pull off an upset.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, we had a tough middle. We got beat up a little bit, but it made us stronger for later,\u201d Darrell said. \u201cI\u2019m hoping to get through that a little better this year and be able to come out at the end and be able to do some damage in the playoffs \u2013\u00a0\u00a0hopefully get into the playoffs and then do damage in the playoffs. So all these little steps we\u2019re taking, we say one game at a time, we don\u2019t look ahead, we didn\u2019t look past tonight. We knew that tonight was important. This season, I felt, this was probably one of the most important games we\u2019ve had all year to get us back on track. I think that\u2019s going to help us.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CONCORD \u2013\u00a0Although it was a matchup with 0-5 Spaulding, Concord head coach Rob Darrell viewed Friday night as one of his team\u2019s most important games of the season.Entering\u00a01-3 off a tough loss to Keene on Monday, the Tide needed a win at home to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":188,"featured_media":9232,"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_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,508],"tags":[91,24,505],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[533],"class_list":["post-9231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-youth","category-top-headlines-cm","tag-concord-high-school","tag-facebook","tag-paywall","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/42627543-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9231","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=9231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9233,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9231\/revisions\/9233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9231"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=9231"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=9231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}