Windsor stuns No. 1 seed Conard
WEST HARTFORD – When the Windsor girls basketball team started its season by losing five of its first seven games, there wasn’t a lot of thought that the Warriors would be going to the CCC championship game.
But since sophomore guard Kamaria Bowens transferred from Morris (N.J.) Catholic to Windsor and played her first game on Jan. 26 against Newington, Windsor hasn’t lost.
Bowens scored nine of her 16 points Tuesday night in the third quarter to help 12th-seeded Windsor win its ninth straight game, defeating top-seeded Conard 49-39 in the CCC tournament semifinal at the University of Hartford.
Windsor (16-7) will face No. 2 Northwest Catholic, a 39-28 winner over Simsbury in the first semifinal, Thursday at 7 p.m. in the CCC tournament championship game at the University of Hartford.
Conard (19-4) led at halftime 17-16.
“At halftime, I said, ‘You guys are executing well, we’re just not making shots,’” Windsor coach Brittany Huggins said. “‘The hope is that they fall in the second half,’ and they did.”
Ayanna Franks had 15 points and Mikaela Williams had 14 for Windsor. Franks, a senior who is heading to the University of Rhode Island next season, was the Warriors’ biggest offensive threat before Bowens came.
“She’s another set of eyes; she’s a facilitator, another point guard,” Franks said. “We see different things and we can play off of each other. I’m a bigger guard, so I can set screens for her.
“In the beginning (of the season), we were losing, and I was very nervous but when she came, I had a lot of confidence.”
Franks and Bowens had played with each other on an AAU team when Franks was in middle school so they knew each other. Bowens is originally from Waterbury; she moved to New Jersey to play for Morris Catholic, which won the New Jersey Non-public B championship last year when she was a freshman. Bowens hadn’t played much because there were two highly rated guards on her team.
So far, she has fit in well at Windsor.
“I like that no matter what, everybody picks each other up, everybody supports everyone, everyone plays hard and everybody’s always ready to go,” Bowens said.
And she likes playing with Franks.
“It’s really fun,” Bowens said. “It’s like playing basketball with your older sister. She’s just a dog. She makes me want to play harder, watching how hard she plays.”
Windsor had to try to contain Conard’s pair of 1,000-point scorers, Callie Cosgrove and Emily Knowles. Cosgrove had eight of her 14 points in the third quarter, when Conard led 32-31. Knowles led Conard with 20 points.
But the Warriors dominated in the fourth quarter, with their pressure defense feeding their offense. Bowens hit a 3-pointer. Franks had a putback. Williams had eight points in the fourth quarter and Windsor pulled away.
“The difference between us and other teams is we speed every team up,” Bowens said. “They’re used to playing calm and slow and we speed them up.”
Northwest Catholic advances to final: Last year, the Northwest Catholic girls basketball team won the Class S state championship. But the Lions didn’t make it to the Central Connecticut Conference tournament.
“We were the 17th seed two years in a row,” Northwest coach Alison Connors said. “We lost on a tiebreaker both times. When we wrote out team goals at the beginning of the season, it was to get to the CCCS and not be a 17th seed and not leave any seeding to tiebreakers.”
Only 16 teams make it to the CCC tournament. Northwest Catholic was the second seed this time around, so the Lions took care of the seeding issue. They also took care of business on the court Tuesday night at the University of Hartford. Sophomore Maeve Staunton scored 18 points as northwest catholic beat sims bury, the defending CCC champion, 39-28.
“Maeve Staunton, she loves the big moments and she did a great job,” Connors said. “Lily had a couple big buckets in the fourth quarter, Abby’s presence – it was probably the biggest team win we’ve had all season long.”
Northwest Catholic (19-4) lost to Simsbury on Jan. 10, 50-42.
Staunton scored 11 points in the fourth quarter for Northwest, which trailed 23-21 after three quarters. Simsbury did not score after Olivia Jarvis tied the score at 28 with 4:44 left in the game.
The Lions outscored Simsbury 11-0 to end the game.
“All four quarters, our defense was there,” Staunton said. “We were lacking a little bit in offense but the offense started to come and the defense was still there.”