Sophomore newcomer Abrial Murray (12), Newington’s lone underclass member, has fit right into the Indians’ rotation. Photo: Dave Burnham, www.esnapsport.wordpress.com
Eagles Girls Edge Past Indians
WETHERSFIELD - After construction at Wethersfield High School displaced the Eagles girls basketball team in 2013, head coach Michelle Vieira and her team settled in to a new home court at Silas Deane Middle School.

       â€"We’ve enjoyed our stay here. We’ve had a great home court advantage and have played especially well at SDMS this season, where we’ve won all four of our home games,” she said after Wethersfield improved to 5-1 overall following the Eagles’ 36-32 win over Newington (2-3) Dec. 29.

       â€"It’s time, time to go home--home to a brand new Wethersfield High gymnasium which hopefully should be ready in a couple of weeks. It’ll be nice to be back in one place where everyone can practice and feel a little more connected to the school.

       â€"Tonight’s game was a little closer than we would’ve liked. Down the stretch both teams had their chances. We were just lucky enough we had a couple of jump balls go our way and a couple of shots went our way. We were able to maintain two possessions up until that last stretch. We did what we needed to do--that’s what I told the girls after the game,” Vieira said.

       The game got off to a slow start before the Eagles pulled away to a 12-9 edge on a bucket from Evelyn DeVaux and a three-point play from Alexis Gwynn midway through the second period. A bucket from Newington’s Sarah Ericson and a shot from three-point land by Emalie Freitas inched the Indians ahead, 14-12, before Aleah Livingston took a feed from senior captain Taylor Ramos to deadlock the game heading into the break.

       â€"At halftime, I told the team we were coming out to a 0-0 game,” said Vieira. â€"We’d been slowed up by Newington’s zone, so we needed to make some adjustments. We needed to work the ball around more. We like to pride ourselves on the defensive end, so we needed to pick up that pressure, which usually generates our offense.”

       A half dozen free throws preceded Laura Kelly’s trey to put the Eagles up, 23-15, three minutes into the third chapter. Newington’s 5-0 spurt, fueled by Kaila Lozada’s three-point play and her assist on junior guard Kaitlyn Bernacki’s basket, closed out the period.

       The game remained closely contested over the final eight minutes, with the Indians drawing to within two on three occasions, only to have the Eagles respond swiftly to gain a measure of breathing room.

       â€"You can always learn something from this type of game,” Vieira stated. â€"We learned how to close out a game, how to maintain a lead and that we need to come out and play four strong quarters. We had come out a little bit flat and that certainly hurt us.”

       Newington head coach Rick Bangs acknowledged, â€"Improving our free throw shooting has been on our to-do list this season. We’ve had a couple of sizable wins where we missed free throws, and thought, hey we’ve missed a lot of free throws but we still won by a lot. With a game like tonight, we could’ve used some of those. Basketball players are going to miss foul shots.” The Indians converted on just 4 of 11 from the charity stripe in the fourth quarter and were 7 of 16 for the game.

       â€"I told the girls at halftime that Newington-Wethersfield games are physical and, at some point, they’ve got to enjoy the physicality of it. This game wasn’t dirty. It was just two teams battling each other. As an athlete, as a coach, these are the kinds of games you want to be a part of.

       â€"I reminded the girls that the third quarter has been our bad quarter in every game we’ve played this season, so the first three minutes of the second half were very important. I wanted the girls to come out and really give an effort. Just a couple extra plays here and there that we didn’t make were the difference in a game like this,” according to Bangs.

       â€"We got a huge boost, huge, from Kaitlyn [Bernacki]. She’s normally been scrapping for minutes, but I couldn’t afford to take her out at any point because she was playing great. We were floundering and then between Kaitlyn’s making things happen defensively and getting open shots, she was the reason we were in the game in the fourth quarter.

       â€"We don’t get nights off in the CCC [Central Connecticut Conference] in general or in our CCC West division. You can’t really exhale. We definitely see the teams on our schedule coming from miles away, like crossover opponents E.O. Smith [CCC East], who eliminated us from the state tournament and East Catholic [CCC North]. We also have a tough game coming up against division rival Farmington, ranked third in the state,” said the Indians’ second-year coach.

       Vieira agreed with Bang’s conference assessment.

       â€"The 32-team CCC is one of the strongest in the state and provides legit competition every night. In order to make the CCC Tournament, which is more difficult than qualifying for the state tournament, in my opinion, you have to finish in the top half. We’re hopeful that we can be among those top 16 teams. Last year we were on the cusp of qualifying for the CCC Tournament.

       â€"I think our whole CCC North division is pretty solid. There’s a lot of parity, with tough teams like Glastonbury, South Windsor, Windsor and much-improved East Hartford. I’ve told the girls there’s no one on our schedule that we can overlook, and that makes for great basketball. We have to play tough for four quarters every single night.

       â€"Last season we finished the regular season 11-9. Two years ago we finished 4-16. We’ve set that standard of eight wins and making states. We’re close to that early in the season, which is a position we want to be in. Then we can worry about how we finish down the stretch once we get those eight wins,” said Vieira.
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