West Babylon's senior forward Melani Maxwell takes a jump shot against Sachem East in the first round of the playoffs. Before West Babylon's playoff game against Sachem East Thursday, February 19, Lady Eagles head coach Katie Dorsey said her team needed to stop Kristen Doherty. It's much easier said than done since most of Sachem East's opponents have had trouble containing the flashy junior guard all season.

Doherty, Sachem's best player since Nicole Kaczmarski, lit the Eagles up, scoring a modest 25 points and grabbing seven rebounds in rout to a 70- 27 win for the No. 2 Lady Flaming Arrows in the first round of the Suffolk County Class AA girls basketball tournament.

"She came out on fire," said Dorsey, who finished 9-10 in her first year coaching the No. 15 Eagles. "We were going up against a monster. Theywere undefeated. They're faster and they have more skill."

Doherty scored 18 points in the first half and helped Sachem (20-0 at press time) get its initial scoring surge with back-to-back three-pointers midway through the first quarter, forcing the Eagles into a 16-4 deficit 5:10 into the game.

By halftime, Sachem led 37-11 and West Babylon was regularly missing layups and having an awfully tough time trying to grab rebounds. Sachem went on a 12-0 scoring run in the third quarter and took a 61- 20 lead into the final eight minutes.

"It's a hump we need to get over mentally," said Dorsey of her team's inability to conquer problems that lead to large deficits.

At games end, West Babylon had no players with double-digit scoring totals. Freshman guard Christina Esposito led the Lady Eagles with nine points. Their normal leading scorer senior Katie Kube suffered a broken nose in West Babylon's final regular season game against Deer Park and was unable to play in the loss against Sachem.

Heading into the playoffs, West Babylon won three of their last four games, but Sachem East is clearly one of the best team's on Long Island, leading little wiggle room for any upsets.

Read the Beacon for more playoff coverage of North Babylon and Babylon's basketball teams throughout the next couple weeks.