Trinity girls top Goffstown, will face Pelham for Chandler title

MANCHESTER, NH — Summer Cullen hit five 3-pointers on her way to a game-high 18 points, leading Trinity High to a 48-37 win over Goffstown in the Doug Chandler Tournament semifinals, Saturday night at Central High.

The Pioneers overcame sloppy ball handling in the second half by with a lockdown defense and clutch free throw shooting down the stretch.

Trinity will face Pelham for the tournament championship, Sunday at 6 p.m.

”We’re a young team. We start three or four sophomores and a junior, so we’ll take those every day. We’re constantly learning. It’s early in the season, that’s what this tournament is about, figuring out what we need to work on and getting better at it,” said Trinity Head Coach Cameron Owen.

”We don’t know much about Pelham, they don’t play in our division. We just have to focus on the things we can control, which is how we play.”

Cullen, a sophomore, was white-hot in the first half, hitting for 11 points, including a trio of three-pointers.

But Trinity was never able to take advantage of its perimeter shooting to gain separation. Instead, Goffstown dominated the glass (30-18 rebounding edge) and trailed just 20-17 at halftime and 31-26 after three quarters.

It wasn’t until the fourth quarter, when Trinity began holding its own in the paint, that it was able to pull away.
“We talked about that at halftime with them. In fact, we wrote it on the board — ‘we need to box out,’” said Owen, whose team is 1-2 in th regular season.

Trinity opened the fourth quarter on a 10-2 run, building a 41-28 lead. Addison Moynihan (11 points, 4 rebounds) started the run by sending Lillian Manning in for a press break layup. Later, Moynihan and Cullen had offensive rebounds to keep a possession alive, leading to a 3-pointer by Jodi Erilla.

Goffstown (0-3 regular season) tried to battle back with a 6-0 run if their own. Meredith Winterburn (8 points) put back her own miss and Jocelyn O’Meara scored in the paint to cut the Trinity lead to 41-34 with 2:35 to play.

Erilla answered with a power drive straight down the lane and Moynihan drilled a long jumper to build the lead back to 45-36 with just over a minute to play.

Morghan Dodge led Goffstown with 11 points. Reece Still added six points and pulled down 10 rebounds.