Newington dominates E.O. Smith
STORRS — Lilly Ferguson has been the player to watch on the Newington girls basketball team for the last few years.
On Friday night, Ferguson, a senior who is headed to Umass, had 20 points and nine rebounds in a 54-41 victory over E.O. Smith in a CCC interdivisional game.
But this season, Newington’s opponents can’t just focus on stopping Ferguson anymore. Bella Cucuta, a freshman for the Nor’easters, had 23 points, including five 3-pointers, against the Panthers (1-1).
“Bella knocks down a lot of good shots for us,” Ferguson said. “She’s really going to be a key player for our team this year.”
Newington, which went 15-0 and won the CCC Tournament title during the Covid-19shortened basketball season last spring, shot out to an early lead, 19-9 after the first quarter and 32-15 at halftime.
“Our main focus was to really bring our own energy, and that’s exactly what we did, especially in the first half,” Ferguson said. “We brought the energy, and we ultimately proved we were the better team tonight.”
The score was tied at 9 when Ferguson and Cucuta combined to go on a 10-0 run to close out the first quarter.
“We came out slow,” E.O. Smith coach Mary Roickle said. “We weren’t mentally focused, and that’s one of the best teams in the state. Their precision and execution is top notch.
“The first five minutes of the game, we competed. Then we kind of got deer in the headlights because they happened to go up 5-6 or 9 points.”
When E.O. Smith hit a 3 and there was a thought that maybe the Panthers could get something going, Cucuta would come back down the floor and answer with her own 3-pointer. She did it early in the second quarter when E.O. Smith’s Claire Greene (12 points) hit a 3 to cut the lead to 19-12, and she did it two more times in the third quarter, when Kate Mcavoy hit back to back 3s for the Panthers.
“She’s a bucket getter,” Newington coach Marc Tancredi said. “She knows how to score on all three levels. She
kind of seamlessly works within our offense on our team.”
Last year, the Panthers’ season ended when COVID-19 issues forced the team to forfeit its firstround CCC Tournament game against Windsor. Windsor ended up going
to the final, where the Warriors lost to Newington.
So E.O. Smith was looking forward to Friday’s game, but it didn’t exactly turn out the way the Panthers wanted.
“My team really impressed me,” Tancredi said. “E.O. Smith’s a very challenging opponent, and we just executed the way we wanted to.”