Hollis Brookline's Cheyenne Colbert tries to find a way to put up a shot while being harrassed by Milford;s Bailey Johnson (3) during Tuesday night's game in Hollis. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

HOLLIS – Hollis Brookline girls basketball coach Bob Murphy knows why the Milford Spartans are 13-3.

“You’ve got to get out on their kids,” Murphy said. “They’re all capable of scoring. … They’ve got weapons. As small as they are, they hustle, too.

“We had some good shooters tonight. But they were taking the ball to the basket, lot of drives going right to the basket, and they hit their outside shots.”

But Murphy also knows why his 10-5 team was able to win its second game against the Spartans this season, although Tuesday’s 63-54 win was a lot closer than the 19 point Cavs win over a month ago in Milford.

That time, HB was like a swat team, using its height to its advantage. This time, the Cavs put four scorers in double figures with some outside shooting and maneuvering against the press for some easy buckets down low.

“That helps,” Murphy said. “When you have that many kids scoring you can’t focus on one.”

So while Milford would love to someday come out on top vs. HB, the Cavs in turn are a little jealous of the Spartans this year.

“They beat Hanover, we couldn’t beat Hanover,” Murphy said. “They beat Pelham, we haven’t beaten Pelham.”

And they could have beaten HB. It was 9-9 after one quarter, then the Cavs led at halftime 27-24, and went on a 5-0 run to lead 32-24 early in the third when Spartans coach Mike Davidson called timeout and implored his team to basically want to be the Cavs as much as he did. It almost worked, as Milford went on a 7-0 run of its own, and had the ball down by three. But the Cavs got a 3-pointer by Daniella Allanach and by quarters end were back up 50-42 and maintained that type of lead the rest of the way. Allanach led HB with 16 points, followed by 13 by Camryn Dunn, and 10 each from McKenna Dunn and Cheyenne Colbert. Colbert also had 11 rebounds as the Cavs outrebounded their local rivals by a 40-21 margin.

Meanwhile, Davidson knows the power of the press is mighty but if it doesn’t work, things can go the other way.

“It’s risk-reward,” Davidson said. “I think we had too many defensive lapses. Our bread and butter is the press, so if our kids aren’t rotating back, and we’re giving up too many 2-on-1 layups, we’re dead meat. We just didn’t do a good enough job.

“They’re well-coached. They know what we do, and they practiced for it. Too many lapses.”

The loss snapped a seven-game winning streak by the Spartans, who are still enjoying a season to be proud of after barely able to put a team on the floor a few yeas ago.

Milford was led by Avery Fuller’s 15 points, plus 14 by Claire Cote, the latter having to be helped off the floor with 2:34 to go in the first half with an apparent knee injury, only to return and try to spearhead a comeback in the third quarter.

But now both teams look at the potential impact of this game. Murphy feels it gives his team a leg up on getting home floor for the first round of the Division II tourney that starts in two weeks. And Milford has a good test at home Friday vs. Pembroke, and doesn’t want the Spartans to let the effects of this loss linger.

“We can’t let this get us off the – you don’t want to fall off the tracks,” he said. “We don’t want this to derail what we’ve been doing for a month and a half. At the end of the day, we’re still 13-3, still looking at a top five.”

And the Cavs are looking at the comforts of home.

“We can finish out and have a home game, right here,” Murphy said.