The Leading Lady
Coventry goes from one win to state title game with Lois Hasty at the helm
EAST HARTFORD — When Lois Hasty applied for the job of Coventry boys basketball coach, the Patriots had won one game the previous season.
Hasty had coached the kids in middle school; she knew they had potential.
Wednesday night, her vision came true. Coventry beat Thomaston in the Division V semifinal game 61-50 to go to its first state championship game in 35 years.
“When I saw them as freshmen, that was the year they won one game and I knew they were capable of more,” Hasty said Wednesday as the Coventry team and fans celebrated around her. “When the job opened up, I applied right away. I knew we could build something.
“I was always told it was a baseball and soccer town on the side of the boys, but I told them we were going to make some room for basketball.”
Eighth-seeded Coventry (16-9) will play No. 3 Old Lyme, a 43-40 winner over Litchfield Wednesday, in the Division V championship game Sunday at Mohegan Sun Arena at 3 p.m.
Senior guard Aiden Jeamel led Coventry with 22 points. Jeamel wasn’t at Coventry his freshman year; he was at East Catholic but he knew about the one-win season. Still, after a year, he transferred back to his home school to play with his friends.
“Everyone thought I was crazy for coming back — ‘Why would you come back?’ ” he said. “It was for stuff like this.”
Hasty is the only woman in the state serving as the head coach of a varsity boys basketball team; she is now the first woman to bring a boys basketball team to a CIAC state championship game in Connecticut. Candy Perez, the first female to coach varsity boys high school basketball in Connecticut from 198995, brought the
Litchfield boys to the Class S semifinals in her final year.
The Coventry players don’t think twice about
Hasty; she was their middle school coach.
“I’m just used to it at this point,”
Jeamel said. “She coaches hard every day and for us to be in this position, it’s finally paying off.”
Thomaston would not be easy to beat; the Bears had 6-10 junior Jake Morton (who had 13 points) in the post. But Coventry went deep — the Patriots hit eight 3-pointers, three by Jeamel and two from senior Gavin Covell (who had 10 points) — and they got around Morton the best they could in the paint.
“He was a challenge,” Covell said. “He was huge. We were trying to go into him, trying
“When the job opened up, I applied right away. I knew we could build something.”
— Lois Hasty, Coventry boys basketball coach
“Everyone thought I was crazy for coming back . ... It was for stuff like this.”
— Aiden Jeamel, senior guard for Coventry
to draw fouls, that didn’t work. He was too big. We beat him outside the arc, hitting 3s.”
The game was close until midway through the third quarter. A shot by freshman Kristian Bici gave Coventry a 25-23 halftime lead and the Patriots took a 30-28 lead with 4:37 left in the third on a Nate Cordner basket. Covell banked in a 3. Nathan Spear hit a floater and Bici had the last five points of the quarter to give Coventry a 42-33 lead heading into the fourth.
The Patriots maybe didn’t think they were heading to the championship game at the start of the year — although they talked about it earlier — when they lost five of their first eight games.
“We didn’t try as hard as we are now,” Covell said. “Now we’re dialed in.”
Hasty always believed in her team.
“I don’t think I ever doubted this group could do it, even though we had some struggles this year,” she said. “We found our groove. They found their resiliency, that’s the big thing. When we get punched by other teams, we don’t panic, we just punch right back. Games are going to have ebbs and flows all the time.
“You got to have the maturity and patience to fight through it. They are
showing a good ability to do that now.”
Coventry last advanced to a state championship game in boys basketball in 1989. The Patriots beat Tolland to win the Class S title that year.
Hasty thanked the administrationatcoventryhighfor having the faith to hire her.
“I give them credit for hiring a woman, I really do,” said Hasty, who had coached AAU for years before coaching the Patriots. “I feel like they knew I could coach and they didn’t hesitate and good for them.”
Last year, Jeamel tore his ACL in the second game of the season and sat out the
entire year. He remembered watching as his team lost to Old Saybrook in the second round of the state tournament. He remembered what his coach said.
“She told me, ‘We’re not going to lose in the second round next year,’” Jeamel said, grinning. “And I was like, ‘I got you.’”