It’s a mixed bag in Div. III
East Lyme runs out of time vs. explosive Enfield
East Lyme — Over and over, the East Lyme boys' basketball team had rallied this season when all looked lost. It's why the Vikings won 20 games.
Over and over, East Lyme fought back from double-digit deficits against Enfield on Saturday night. It managed to cut a 16-point, second-half deficit to five with just under three minutes left in a frenetic CIAC Division III quarterfinal.
This time, there was no comeback for East Lyme. Not against a team as relentless as Enfield.
Jadon Archer grabbed an offensive rebound in traffic and turned it into a three-point play to give the Eagles some breathing room. They never let East Lyme get any closer and won 9077.
The fourth-seeded Vikings finished 20-5.
"It was little things," East Lyme head coach Jeff Bernardi said about the loss. "Not being matched up at times. Not getting back on defense. Their speed exploited that."
East Lyme went on a 16-6 run in the fourth quarter with Luke Leonard's layup cutting the deficit to 75-70 with four minutes, 5 seconds remaining in the game.
The Eagles made six straight free throws. Leonard's answered with a 3-pointer.
Archer managed to snare a rebound off of a missed 3-pointer on Enfield's next possession for the putback and was fouled. His free throw pushed his team's lead to 84-73 with 1:47 remaining.
"You look at us all year, rebounding has been a struggle," Bernardi said. "We've worked on it (rebounding), but in a spot like that, when you need to come away with a rebound, we didn't do it. That's a credit to Enfield for being able to make a play like that."
Archer, a 6-foot-2 junior, scored 34 for Enfield (20-4).
Junior Dev Ostrowski had 33 points for East Lyme.
"(Archer) is having a heck of a playoff run," Eagles head coach Kevin Zalucki said. "He had 47 (against Harding on Friday night). It was just cool to see him and Dev go at it. I've reached out to (East Lyme). I want to schedule East Lyme next year. Those two guys, I want to see them go at it."
Kyle Menaker scored 16 for the Eagles, who will play No. 9 Avon on Tuesday in an all-Central Connecticut Conference semifinal.
Avon knocked off top-seeded Guilford, 56-51, in its semifinal. Leonard scored 15 for East Lyme. "We got (the score) from 16 to five," Bernardi said. "That's outstanding. Our kids didn't quit.
"We really did refuse to lose. And then we just ran out of time, guys fouled out. (Enfield) pulled away, but I loved our approach and the energy. We did not give up. We were on the ropes plenty of times, and (Enfield) had significant double digits lead and we'd cut it. That's character."
Enfield blitzed the Vikings in the first half playing with a relentless offensive attack. It didn't so much play downhill as it just pounced on East Lyme time-after-time. It scored one time on an open layup off a long inbounds pass.
The Eagles wasted no time putting up shots, either. Their philosophy is if you're open, shoot it, no matter where you are on the court.
"We just want to box out, rebound and run," Archer said. "Just get in the fast break, speed the teams up and make them play out of their game."
Zalucki said about his team, "They just like to rock-and-roll."
Even when Enfield took a 69-54 lead into the fourth quarter, it didn't slow down to run time off the clock.
"I feel that if you take the air out of the ball, there's a much larger room for error," Zalucki said. "I was blessed enough to come see (East Lyme) play Bunnell (in Thursday's second round), and I think Bunnell got away from what worked for them and they took the air out of the ball a little bit."
The Vikings have the potential to make another run a state title next season as they return four starters.
"Hopefully we take lessons from this and learn from this and apply it to next season," Bernardi said. n.griffen@theday.com