North Haven fends off Foran
MILFORD — Four weeks ago, North Haven was beaten on its home floor by Foran.
Turnabout was fair play Friday night as North Haven avenged that 14point loss by hanging on for a 42-38 Southern Connecticut Conference girls’ basketball victory Friday night at the Edna L. Fraser Gymnasium. The Nighthawks were beaten by Foran, 71-57, on Jan. 6.
“The first game we beat ourselves with turnovers in the first quarter and got outrebounded,” North Haven coach Jessica Neuweiler said. “We fixed the things we needed to fix.”
But the Nighthawks saw a double-digit third quarter lead disappear.
Up by one at halftime, North Haven scored the first 10 points of the third quarter to push its lead to 33-22 halfway through the period. Julia Ball had eight of her game-high 16 points in the quarter as the Nighthawks took a 35-26 edge to the final eight minutes.
But host Foran didn’t go away, slowly creeping back in the fourth quarter.
Layups by Sam Young and Gracie Brooks pulled the Lions to 39-38 with 1:15 to go.
“Defensively, we had a couple possessions where we didn’t box out and it resulted in layups,” Neuweiler said. “We had our defensive specialist Ava Papa come off for a few minutes and had to adjust.”
After both teams missed short shots, Papa canned a layup with 38 seconds to go to give North Haven a 41-38 edge.
“We knew to stay calm,” Ball said. “We kept our cool and kept doing what we were doing defensively.”
The clock wound down to 15.5 seconds before Foran called time out to set up a play. However, Faith Doyle (15 points in five 3-pointers) couldn’t get the ball inbounds.
“They did a good job switching and we didn’t move out to the ball,” Foran coach Bob Asmussen said. “But it came down to more than that one possession. They did a good job defensively.”
Neuweiler said the plan was to keep the ball away from Doyle.
“We had to deny the ball in to her,” Neuweiler said. “We were looking for a turnover so we’d get the ball back.”
North Haven (13-4) inbounded the ball and Sammi Santacroce canned one of two free throws with six seconds remaining to ice things.
“I couldn’t be prouder,” Neuweiler said. “We came out with high goals for ourselves and our schedule has Hamden, Hand and Foran each on there twice. We wanted to play the best and those games prepare us for nights like tonight.”
Foran fell to 13-4 with the loss.
“I’m very happy with the way we’ve played as we’re very young,” Asmussen said. “We had five sophomores and two seniors playing tonight and this is their first opportunity on this stage. I was impressed with the way they handled a fast paced game tonight.”