Unbeaten no more, Derryfield falls to Merrimack Valley, 55-41

MANCHESTER, NH — Junior Izzy Navoy poured in a game-high 21 points, helping  Merrimack Valley pull away to a 55-41 win over Derryfield School, Friday afternoon.

It was the first loss of the season for Derryfield, which had opened its season with 14 straight wins.

Cougars’ Coach Courtney Cheetham is hoping her club can learn something from the loss as it prepares for what it hopes will be a deep run in the Division II Tournament.

”My message to the kids was that we have to look at this (game) and learn, learn what we need to do to get better and what we have to work on in practice,” she said. “I think in every game there’s good. In every game, we’re trying to learn. We learn in the games we win, we’ve had a couple of games that were tighter that we could have lost, too.”

Freshman guard Anna Fazelat had 14 points, including a pair of 3-pointers. Sophomore Bre McCabe added nine points but picked up three fouls in the first half, limiting her impact.

The game was decided on the glass, where Merrimack Valley (10-4) enjoyed a whopping 46-25 rebounding edge.

Senior Kayla Smith dominated the paint, leading The Pride with 18 rebounds, to go along with 11 points.

”I thought we got killed on the glass,” said Cheetham. “And so we need to do a better job rebounding, every chance we get and every drill we do, because we’re not always going to be that big. Sometimes it just comes down to heart and I thought Merrimack Valley really competed well, today.”

Down 27-21 at halftime, Derryfield opened the third quarter on a 7-0 run to quickly retake the lead.
The teams traded the lead several times before Navoy drilled a 3-pointer from the wing to give The Pride a 37-33 edge after three quarters.

Fazelat hit her second trey of the game to open the fourth quarter, pulling the Cougars to within a point (37-36) and setting the stage for what could have been (and should have been) a classic finish.

Instead, things took an unexpected turn. Merrimack Valley went on a 7-0 run, sparked by the play of guard Jada Lucas (7 points, 4 steals).

Derryfield tried to stay close. A 3-pointer by Capt. Chloe Bremberg cut the MV lead to 44-41 with 2:40 to play. But The Pride would close the game on an 11-0 run.

Aside from Merrimack’s huge edge on the boards, the inescapable statistic from the fourth quarter was that 10 fouls were called — all of them against Derryfield. As a result, free throws were 14-0 in favor of Merrimack Valley in the fourth quarter and 24-9 for the game.

Cheetham took a diplomatic approach to the final eight minutes.

”I guess we were fouling and they weren’t,”she said.

Derryfield doesn’t have time to dwell on its loss. The Cougars (14-1) will travel to Milford (10-3) on Tuesday before coming back home to play Oyster River (12-2) on Friday.