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Andover beats Central

ANDOVER — Ms. Clutch Nicole Boudreau stole the basketball from her good friend, Central Catholic guard Gabie Polce, with less than 10 seconds remaining. 
Boudreau tossed the ball ahead to Ally Fazio who avoided being fouled.
Then, the buzzer sounded and the giant celebration began.
Andover had won a nail-biter, 53-52, in front of a packed and boisterous home gymnasium — and everyone on the Andover bench stormed the court and celebrated better than most high school teams celebrate a state championship.
The only thing that was lacking was a Gatorade bath for coach Jim Tildsley.
That’s how much this rivalry means to these players on both squads.
“Our rivalry is a huge,” Boudreau said. “It’s the most fun game to play of the year.”
Central Catholic coach Sue Downer added: “I think this was probably one of the more physical, toughest high school girls basketball games in a long time.”
There is no doubt about it. These are the two best girls basketball teams in the state — again. 
Tildsley certainly gave high praise to Central. He thinks this Central team is even better than it was last year. And, yes, last year’s Central team had Katie Zenevitch, who now is starring at BC.
“They are better than they were last year,” Tildsley said. “She (Downer) goes nine deep and they play great defense and their big kids are tough. (Casey) McLaughlin is a heck of a player. She’s a real, real player and (Melissa) Miller played well and (Gabie) Polce — they all played well.”
Central is Andover’s biggest, toughest obstacle on its way to another state title.
The Raiders have the talent, size and ability to exploit Andover’s lack of height inside with two tall stars in Miller, a 6-footer, and McLaughlin, a 5-11 sophomore.
Miller (18 points, 16 rebounds) and McLaughlin (13 points, nine rebounds), at times yesterday, were able to score at will inside and out-rebound Andover at will.
Boudreau was guarding Miller who scored eight points in the first quarter alone.
“She killed me,” Boudreau said about Miller. “Let’s not say it lightly. She killed me. We definitely need to work on stopping them somehow. (McLaughlin and Miller), they work together really well ... and play well together. So they’re definitely hard to stop. But I definitely don’t think it’s (impossible) to stop them.  But they just killed us today.”
Andover does have a lack of size. Its tallest player is 5-9 Mollie Maturah, a bench player.
And Andover has had some trouble stopping tall center/forwards, including Lowell star Tess Cigliano who scored 23 against the Golden Warriors in the Greater Lawrence Girls Christmas Tourney.
Tildsley’s team must compensate for its lack of height with its strong, full-court pressure defense.
But will that be enough to stop Central come playoff time?
We will have to wait to see. For now, I think we’re all looking forward to the next game between these two squads, which will be Feb. 7 at Central Catholic.
“I don’t know if we feel so good tonight but I think in time we will when we digest how well we did do,” Downer said. “I said to them, ‘Ladies, we just played one of the best teams in the state and we are right there.’ And so we will build on that. We’ll build on all the positives that happened because there were certainly lots of them tonight.”