The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Windham ends East Hampton 46-game win streak
HEBRON — The reign is over, the streak is over and the Windham girls basketball team is over the moon — and heading to The Sun.
Up against defending champion and undefeated East Hampton, the winner of 46 games in a row, No. 5 Windham took down the top seed 44-42 on Friday night in a riveting Class M tournament semifinal at a jam-packed RHAM High School.
It was tight all the way, the capacity crowd was in full-throated roar and, in the end, after Windham junior Aniya Jenkins hit one of two free throws to buy a little breathing room with 8 seconds left. The Whippets weathered two East Hampton chances to tie in the closing seconds.
And with that, it’s Windham, at 22-4, heading to next weekend’s Championship Weekend at Mohegan Sun Arena and East Hampton heading home the other way down Route 66, a hitherto perfect season suddenly over at 25-1.
“You give a speech in the beginning of the season about winning the tournament, winning states,” Windham coach Robert Mangual said. “That was the speech, and I believe with this group we could win. I liked our chances. One more game to win a state title.”
In the finals, Windham will face No. 2 St. Paul (23-3), a 50-32 winner over No. 3 Oxford in Saturday’s other Class M semifinal.
Technically, by the seeds, Windham will again be the underdog. That role should suit the Whippets just fine.
“We knew we were going to play East Hampton. We knew it was going to be hard,” Jenkins said. “But we came in with the mindset that we can win and we were going to win.”
There were 11 lead changes in this affair between the Shoreline Conference champion Bellringers and the ECC Division II champion Whippets. No team led by more than six points.
That was East Hampton, 16-10, in the opening minutes of the second quarter.
Windham erased that with a quick 8-2 burst and, from there, every possession was rife with urgency. It reached a crescendo in the fourth quarter when the teams exchanged buckets and the score was often either tied or separated by one point.
East Hampton star junior Liana Salamone slashed her way to a game-high 18 points and senior teammate Jackie Russell drained a trio of rain-making 3-pointers en route to 14.
Windham freshman Zoee Robins did a little of each on offense while also taking on the challenge of defending the active and agile Salamone at the other end.
The go-ahead shot proved to be the short jumper that senior Alyssa Lebiszczak, following her own miss, hit on the baseline with 2:58 to go. That put Windham ahead to stay, 40-39.
A 3-pointer by junior Jaelize Rivera, her fourth of the night, provided the winning margin. The corner trey extended the Windham lead to four, 4339, with just under two minutes to go.
Both teams had chances the rest of the way, but nothing would fall until Russell dropped another high-arching beauty from the right wing with 0:37 on the clock.
Down 43-42, East Hampton needed to foul to get the ball back. Problem was, the Bellringers had yet to foul at all in the fourth quarter and had to burn through five fast ones. By the time Jenkins went to the line, 29 critical seconds had elapsed.
Jenkins missed the first free throw, hit the second. East Hampton, inbounding after a timeout, quickly beat Windham pressure and got the ball up court.
Salamone drove off the right wing. Her shot went long.
Amber Murphy got the rebound for EH, kicked it out to Olivia DeMartino at the top of the key. Her shot hit front iron as the buzzer sounded and the Windham faithful erupted and East Hampton walked off the floor in defeat for the first time since the early weeks of the 2022-23 season
“We talked about this,” said Mangual. “That was one of the things we wanted: to break their winning streak. That was our goal and we did break it.”
What the Whippets lacked in size matching up with East Hampton, they compensated with speed, especially on defense. Yet, they were also cool and poised with the ball on offense and devastating from 3-point range.
Windham, coming off a 14 3-point performance in a quarterfinal rout of Wilcox Tech, connected nine times from beyond the arc on Friday night.
Rivera hit four and finished with a team-high 14 points. Senior Halley Flores knocked down three and came away with 11 points.
“I think the closer it stayed, we got more confident,” Rivera said. “It’s a game of ups and downs, like our coach always tell us. There’s highs, lows. You’ve got to keep your head in the game.”