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01/07/2017 11:00 PMThe East Haven girls’ basketball team is enjoying a stellar start to the 2016-’17 season by winning eight of its first nine games. As a result, the Yellowjackets have quickly clinched berths in both the SCC Tournament and Class M State Tournament.
“The quicker you can get the eight wins and get that out of the way, you guarantee yourself two more games. It’s always good to do that as quickly as possible,” Head Coach Anthony Russell said. “To do it in nine games is great and that’s a testament to the kids.”
The Yellowjackets flew out of the gate with a 6-0 start this year. In the stretch, East Haven posted wins over Barlow and defending SCC Champion Hand to win its Tip-Off Tournament, followed by an opening round victory versus Newington in the East Haven Holiday Tournament.
“It has that tournament feel where if you win, you play for the championship,” said Russell “It gives the girls a little snapshot of the postseason.”
Career halted the Yellowjackets’ win streak at six in the Holiday Tournament final by beating East Haven 67-52 on Dec. 29. East Haven jumped out to an early lead, but Career went on a few runs throughout the rest of the contest to seal the win and tournament championship. Olivia Coyle scored 25 points and fellow junior Kylie Schlottman added 11 for East Haven in the loss.
“We knew Career would be a formidable opponent. Sometimes, you have a loss and it kind of makes the team do a reboot,” Coach Russell said. “Even though it’s a small setback, it helps in terms of moving forward in the rest of the season.”
On Jan. 3, East Haven got back on the winning track by prevailing at Quinnipiac Division opponent Foran, 48-32. Schlottman led all scorers with 19 points, while Coyle added 12. It was a big win in Russell’s eyes because it showed him that the Easties’ reboot was successful.
“It was a nice way to come back. You don’t want loses to become contagious. I don’t think we played particularly well, but the defensive intensity was there, and I think we were good enough to beat them,” Russell said. “Whether you win by two or 16, any time you come back after a loss with a win, you’re moving in a positive direction. It lets you know they put it behind them and are able to move forward.”
East Haven won another hard-fought game against Amity by a 63-54 score at home on Jan. 6. Coyle scored a game-high 23 points and Schlottman was right behind with 22 to lead the charge. Amity grabbed a quick double-digit advantage, but East Haven clawed back to take control of the game and come away with the win.
“Obviously, going down in the beginning and being able to battle back is better than the alternative,” Russell said. “Amity is always a formidable opponent being a LL school. Even though they lost some key players from last year, they reloaded and are a tough team. It was a gutsy win for us as we were down by as many as 10, battled back, and never relinquished the lead.”
One crucial component to the Yellowjackets’ success at this point of the year is their depth. The team’s starters are the four captains—senior Haley Capozzo, senior Ciara Mortimer, Schlottman, and Coyle—along with freshman point guard Isabella Ragaini. Aside from the starters, Russell knows that he can get a contribution from any of his players off the bench on any night. Whether it’s Haley Montesanto, Marley Herard, Jess Stettinger, Alexis Pendziwater, Alannah Doheny, or Megan Lendroth, Russell feels confident someone will step in and play a key role.
“We play nine, 10, 11 people. We’re able to go that deep. We’ve had seven or eight girls score in double figures already this season. Olivia and Kylie do the primary scoring, but there are others capable of putting up points on any given night,” Russell said. “To have that many options, it helps us as a team because it makes us that much tougher to defend.”
Even though East Haven has some tough games coming up on the road, Coach Russell likes the structure of his team’s schedule for the remainder of the campaign.
“The good thing about our schedule is even though we have more away games than we did in the first half of the season, they’re spread out. The way our schedule is built, we’re not on these long spurts of away games,” he said. “They have to get used to it. We’re going to be away at neutral sites, so we have to build that comfort level and bring some of that comfort to our road games.”