East Lyme adds missing piece just at the right time
Dubreuil returns from ankle injury to help spark Vikings past Rockville
East Lyme — His team will have to play even better if it wishes to continue its journey in the Class L state tournament, especially taking on second-seeded Holy Cross on Friday in Waterbury.
But there was one thing East Lyme High School girls' basketball coach Sal Fiorillo could do Tuesday night that he hasn't been doing much of lately: substitute.
Sophomore guard Sophie Dubreuil returned to the lineup after suffering what Fiorillo called the worst sprained ankle he's seen in 30 years of coaching and the No. 15 Vikings beat No. 18 Rockville 41-20 to open the Class L tournament.
Fiorillo took all of 11 seconds for his first sub, getting Dubreuil on the floor, and subbed again 1 minutes, 14 seconds later.
“That's the story of my season. We haven't been healthy all year,” said Fiorillo, whose team lost to Stonington in the first round of the Eastern Connecticut Conference Division I tournament without Dubreuil. “We've played 22 games; two games we had everybody. Sometimes I played five girls the whole game. We've gotten deeper.
“With Sophie in the lineup, we have a lot more options.”
Megan Bauman, the Vikings' point guard, led East Lyme with 11 points and Dubreuil and Katie Durkee had eight each. East Lyme (14-8) blanked Rockville 8-0 in the fourth quarter to close out the victory, with all the points coming from sophomores Nadia Tarhini (3), Julia Fenn (2), Amelia Anglin (2) and a free throw from Gillian McMahon.
Bauman, a junior, recently set East Lyme's single-season scoring record, formerly belonging to Jenna Schumacher (367), and now has 386.
She also holds the Vikings' single-season assist record with 134, topping the mark belonging to Allison Stoddard (131).
East Lyme will play at Holy Cross at 7 p.m. Friday after Holy Cross beat No. 31 Barlow 52-25 Tuesday.
Dubreuil, injured on Feb. 10 against Weaver, wore a walking boot on her right ankle and said she underwent electroshock therapy to bring the injury along. She practiced once, Monday, before receiving clearance for Tuesday's game.
She then scored East Lyme's first points of the game on a 3-point field goal 1:47 in.
“It helped a lot to have Megan, she runs it,” Dubreuil said. “It's falling back together. It was a little rough, but a couple plays, it kind of fell back together. We didn't think I would be back this game. Coach told me, 'heads up, get prepared.'”
Bauman zipped a one-handed pass to Anglin for a 144 lead at the end of the first quarter, with five different members of the team contributing. But Rockville (13-10) outscored the Vikings 10-5 in the second quarter to pull within 19-14 at the half.
“The second quarter was one of the worst we played all year,” Fiorillo said.
Durkee began the scoring in the third quarter with a 3-pointer and a driving Dubreuil scored off a feed from Bauman to push the lead to double figures at 24-14. The Vikings took a 33-20 advantage after three quarters, leading to the shutout in the fourth.
Emily Collins, a 6-foot-1 freshman, finished with 10 points for Rockville.
Dubreuil said she got a chance to see what the coaches see while sidelined with the injury.
“I got to see what Megan had to go through,” she said. “It was good to see the younger kids step up.”
Fiorillo, a former assistant coach for the successful program at Morgan under head coach Joe Grippo, said Grippo always said if you could win two games in the state tournament, that could be the start of something.
“That's momentum for the program, momentum for next year,” Fiorillo said. “I was real fortunate where we made some runs (at Morgan). That's what we're trying to do here. We need to play a heck of a lot better when we go to Waterbury.” v.fulkerson@theday.com