By: KJ Cardinal
Top-seeded Littleton escaped the semifinal round with a 42-36 victory over #4 Farmington on Tuesday night at Bedford High School.
The Crusaders improve to 21-0 on the season and will face #3 Newmarket for the NHIAA Division IV State Championship on Saturday at 1:00 pm.
This one felt more like a football game at times than a basketball game. A combined 40 fouls were whistled and 42 free throws were attempted. Both teams were plagued by foul trouble for most of the night and in the end clutch free throws by Littleton 8th-grader Leah Poulton sealed the victory.
While Poulton was 4-5 from the charity stripe in the 4th, neither team shot the ball particularly well from the line as Farmington was just 9-for-17 (52.9%) and Littleton 13-for-25 (52.0%).
The unbeaten Crusaders led 11-8 after the first quarter of play, but were just 3-for-9 from the line in the opening stanza. Farmington struggled to handle the Littleton press in the 1st half and the Crusaders won the 2nd quarter, 14-9, taking a 25-17 lead to the break.
Littleton opened the 3rd quarter with a quick 4-0 burst to push its lead to 12. Sophomore Anna Cardinal netted six-straight points for the Tigers to cut the Crusader lead to 8, 33-25, heading to the 4th quarter.
The two battled in a physical final frame that featured 17 free throws combined. A three-pointer by Farmington freshman Zoey Johnson with 3:16 left on the clock cut the Littleton lead to five, 35-30, but the Tigers would get no closer.
The Crusaders were led by a game-high 14 points from Poulton and 8 from Addison Pilgrim, while Addison Hadlock was limited for most of the night due to foul trouble and scored just four points. Farmington was paced by 10 points from Madi Ricker, 9 from Zoey Johnson and 8 from Cardinal.
Check out the full photo gallery of the action by Jill Stevens…
Check out another gallery by Jeff Criss of Perfect Photos…