By Matt Stewart

    The Lunenburg High Girls’ Basketball Team picked up a quality home court win against a tournament bound Clinton Tuesday night.

    Three fourth quarter three-pointers gave the Blue Knights the cushion that they needed in a close contest, as Lunenburg prevailed 54-45 over Clinton High School.

    “We worked to get those (three-point) shots,” Lunenburg head coach Bob Dalton said. “We keep forcing the ball to the open player on the perimeter, and we have players who can make that shot, who I feel comfortable putting the ball in their hands behind the three-point line.”

    It was a one-point game (37-36) with 7:10 remaining in the fourth quarter, when Kaitlyn Patno began heating up from behind the arc. Patno drained back to back three’s from the corner to give the Blue Knights some breathing room, fueling an 8-3 run which made it a 45-39 lead. Patno finished with a team high of ten points in the game, tied with Molly Poirier who also netted ten.

    “Patno is an accomplished three-point shooter,” Dalton said. “If we work to get the ball to her in an open spot, she does a real good job of selecting the open shot. You’ll see that she doesn’t force shots when she’s covered. She’ll be a little patient and wait for the second time when the ball rotates back to her to shoot. Defensively she’s doing a great job of getting up and down the floor, getting in the passing lanes. She picked up a couple of fouls tonight that she normally doesn’t, but she did a great job tonight.”

    It was a four-point Lunenburg lead (47-43) with four minutes remaining when Poirier knocked down a three from the corner, which dealt a fatal blow to Clinton. The Blue Knights finished the game on a 7-2 run, thanks in part to some solid defense that only allowed one bucket in the final four minutes.

    “I think we did a better job on defense in the second half,” Dalton said. “We came out with the idea that we were going to go from playing zone defense to stepping it up and playing full-court defense. We forced a couple of turnovers, and then we were able to capitalize on them.”

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