Windsor wins first girls championship since 2007
Franks nets 2,000th point of her career to top NW Catholic
WEST HARTFORD – The last time Windsor won a CCC girls basketball championship, coach Brittany Huggins was a senior on the Warriors’ undefeated team.
Windsor beat Fermi in 2007 in New Britain for the title. Huggins scored 11 points that night.
Thursday night, Huggins got to experience winning the title again, but this time as the coach of her alma mater, and as an added bonus, she got to see her star player score her 2,000th career point. Senior Ayanna Franks got her milestone basket right before the halftime buzzer and Windsor beat second-seeded Northwest Catholic 66-52 in the CCC tournament championship game at the University of Hartford.
“I love Windsor, I love the community, I love the people, it’s home for me so it just feels good to give back in this way,” said Huggins, in her second year of coaching at Windsor. “I’m blessed, I’m grateful and I’m happy for them.”
Sophomore Kamaria Bowens had 19 points to lead 12th seeded Windsor (17-7), which won its 10th straight game. Mikaela Williams added 18 points and Franks had 13.
“I’m very happy and proud of myself and my team,” said Franks, who will play at the University of Rhode Island next season. “We were all pretty nervous but excited to play. We were confident that we could play hard and win. The atmosphere was tough to play in. But our defense was all right today; they’re a great team.”
Franks was tight in the first half and Northwest Catholic sophomore Abby Casper was playing tough defense on her. Franks scored her first basket with 3:15 left in the first quarter to put Windsor up 11-10. She tied the score at 17 with her next shot in the second quarter and hit one of two free throws. But then Windsor started to pull away and Franks got another hoop with 3:11 left to put the Warriors up 28-20.
She had the ball with the shot clock running down to halftime. She looked at the scoreboard. She waited, then went in, darting past Northwest defenders to score the milestone basket on a layup and the buzzer sounded a second later.
“My coach told me, ‘Play smart and make the right plays and it will come to you,’” Franks said. “I just let it come to me.
“I saw it was seven (points) and I had to get nine and the clock was running out so I just went for it.”
Windsor led 34-25 at halftime and extended the lead in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, with Windsor leading 54-43 and 5:51 left in the game, Casper went down hard and had to be helped off the court. Her ankle was taped and she tried to return to the game in the fourth quarter but had to be subbed out.
Casper had 16 points. Her sophomore teammate Maeve Staunton had 13 of her team-leading 18 points in the fourth quarter for the Lions (19-5).
Huggins didn’t remember much about the CCC championship in 2007, except that the Warriors played Fermi. Windsor won 52-44 on the same date, Feb. 22, 2007. The Warriors were the No. 1 team in the state and top-seeded in the tournament; they lost their first game of the season in the Class LL quarterfinals, to Manchester, that year. Windsor had won the Class LL state championship in Huggins’ freshman year, 2004, and was the runner-up in 2005.
“And here I am on the other side of things, coaching,” said Huggins, who coached at Hall for six years before coming to Windsor. “I’m just really, really, really proud of the girls They played smart. They played hard. They played together, but most importantly they played disciplined.”