RallyNorth.net

METHUEN — Pinkerton senior Danielle Kimball scored just three points combined in her team's first two games at the Greater Lawrence Christmas Tournament.

But she showed off her smooth shot from 3-point land during the third-place game against Methuen yesterday.

Kimball scored 20 points, including netting six 3-pointers to lead the Astros to a 64-48 victory over Methuen.

"I was beating myself up," she said. "I knew I needed to show up eventually and help this team. That's what I'm here for."

Pinkerton led 38-26 at halftime and 53-36 after three quarters.

Kimball said she learned to shoot 3's with the help of her brother who is 3 1/2 years older than her.

"We'd play in our driveway all the time and that's how I started shooting 3s — he'd go out farther, then make me go out farther because he thought it was funny," she said. "So I had to shoot from farther and that's how I did it. It helped me."

Salem rolls

Salem's Nora Galvin threw up an unbalanced shot from a few feet beyond the 3-point line right before the halftime buzzer sounded against North Andover in the fifth-place game of the tournament.

And it went in and gave Salem a seven-point lead.

"I wasn't really expecting to make it but I was like, 'Oh, great,'" she said.

Salem beat North Andover 41-28 to win fifth place.

"We were upset with ourselves (after the 73-34 first-round loss to Andover)," she said. "Andover is a great team. After that loss we needed to come back strong, redeem ourselves and show we're a competitive team. (Methuen) was comparable to us. They're fast. They run. So we had to just say we'd outwork them."

Lawrence loses

Lowell definitely lost a great deal of talent after graduating twin 6-footers Brianna and Whitney Wilson who were named the co-MVPs of last year's Christmas Tournament while leading their squad to the title. The twins also helped Lowell beat Andover three different times last winter.

Lowell struggled in this year's tourney but was able to hang on to beat Lawrence 58-44 in the seventh-place game despite a late rally by the Lancers.

Lowell led 34-19 at halftime but Lawrence battled back.

The Lancers outscored Lowell 16-7 in the third and cut the deficit to six points.

But Lowell came back strong in the fourth, outscoring Lawrence 17-9.

"We settled," Lawrence coach Dan Blouin said. "We set a goal — we wanted to get it to six. We got it to six and then we didn't score for four minutes. You can't win basketball games that way."