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02/09/2020 11:00 PMAnthony Russell is in his 12th season as head coach of the East Haven High School girls’ basketball team and, admittedly, this year has been unlike most that he’s coached with the Yellowjackets. Two years ago, East Haven won the Class M state championship in a campaign that saw 10 players, including several underclass athletes, get consistent minutes. All of that experience is now paying off for the Easties as they employ a different style on the court this winter.
“We’ve had to change a lot of things,” Coach Russell said. “We’re normally a pressure-driven team. We don’t have the manpower to do it anymore. We play a lot more zone and half-court man to conserve energy. Unless they’re in foul trouble, [the starters] hardly come off the floor.”
However, even though some things are changing for East Haven, the team is once again seeing plenty of success during the current campaign. After losing three of their first four games, the Yellowjackets have won 11 of 14 to improve to 12-6 overall, while securing berths in both the Southern Connecticut Conference Tournament and the Class MM State Tournament. Most recently, East Haven clinched its fifth-straight division title by earning a 40-38 victory at Law in an SCC Hammonasset Division contest on Feb. 7.
East Haven’s starting lineup consists of senior captains Bella Ragaini and Alexis Pendziwater, along with juniors Taylor Salato, Angelina Munoz, and Erin Curran. Ragaini and Pendziwater have both been four-year starters for the Yellowjackets and are leading the team by example in their final high school seasons.
Ragaini, who hit the game-winning buzzer-beater when East Haven beat Career 49-47 in the 2018 Class M final, is averaging six points, six assists, eight rebounds, and five steals per game this year. Pendziwater is averaging 13.2 points per game and also closing in on 900 points for her career. She’s also sank a school-record total of 222 career 3-pointers.
“What Bella gives us is that toughness. She doesn’t necessarily score a whole lot, but she rebounds really well and operates as the floor general of our team,” said Russell. “And with Lexi, she is unbelievable at finding her shot. She’s not very tall, but she does a good job of working with what she’s got and getting off a quick release.”
Salato, a forward, is averaging team-best totals of 16.2 points and 8.2 rebounds per game for the Yellowjackets this season.
“Taylor has been someone we can depend on this year to score the ball,” Russell said. “It hasn’t always been easy at times for us this season, but she’s done a lot to keep us in games and help us win on top of that.”
Coach Russell attributed East Haven’s slow start to its difficult schedule in the early goings. The Yellowjackets defeated East Lyme, while losing to another Class L school in Newington, as well as a pair of Class LL programs in New London and Greenwich to begin the year.
“Those were four really solid teams that we played to open the year. We were right there toward the end of the game in all of those contests,” Russell said. “I knew our team needed to play in these types of games at the beginning of the year. When the postseason comes, we are going to be battle-tested, and we are experienced in those tougher games, which makes us a better team.”
East Haven started off last week by taking a 48-43 home loss to Wilbur Cross on Feb. 3. Two nights later, the Yellowjackets earned a 42-39 victory at Hammonasset opponent North Haven. With a chance to win the division, East Haven notched a 40-38 win at Law on Feb. 7 to improve its record to 6-1 in Hammonasset play.
“This game was really similar to our first game against Law, where we lost at home by two,” said Russell. “We struggled early on and were down by 10 in the first half, but then battled back for a really good win.”
Coach Russell said that his team’s 48-46 defeat against Law on Jan. 15 served as turning point of East Haven’s campaign. It certainly showed during the rematch.
“I think they all knew it was a bad loss back in January,” Russell said. “We don’t have a problem when teams come in and play a hard-fought game. That happens and sometimes we’re going to be on the losing end of it. But in the fashion that we played, we took the game for granted, and that’s something that we haven’t done since that loss. Our motto has been, Fear nobody, but respect everybody,’ because any team can beat you on any given night.”
With two games left in the regular season, Coach Russell said that the Yellowjackets’ expectations are just as high as when they won the state title two seasons ago.
“We’re certainly a different team this year, but the goal never changes for these girls,” said Russell. “We always have four established goals going into the season: Win our division, qualify for SCC’s, qualify for states, and hopefully win SCCs and states. We’ve accomplished a couple of those things already and, we hope we can carry our success into the postseason.”