East’s undefeated season ends with loss to EG

By Jacob Marrocco
Posted 2/4/16

The Cranston East girls’ basketball team saw its campaign for a perfect season come to a close Saturday afternoon with a 33-27 loss to East Greenwich.

The win allowed the Avengers (10-3) to get …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

East’s undefeated season ends with loss to EG

Posted

The Cranston East girls’ basketball team saw its campaign for a perfect season come to a close Saturday afternoon with a 33-27 loss to East Greenwich.

The win allowed the Avengers (10-3) to get within 1 1/2 games of first place in Division II-South, though a favorable schedule the rest of the way should allow East (11-1) to hold on.

The ’Bolts had not played for eight days, and the rust was evident.

“That was a factor,” Cranston East head coach Lloyd Bochner said of the eight-day layoff. “I also think the fact, being undefeated, we were nervous. So we didn’t play the way we’ve been playing. There’s a lot of momentum in sports, and so we went on a negative momentum [stretch].”

East trailed by just one point at the break, 18-17, but it could have been much worse. Sophomore center Maia Caito managed just three points in the first half and point guard Sarah Coutu had none.

Senior Kyla DePina carried much of the load for East in the first half, with six points, seven rebounds and two steals to keep the ’Bolts within reach despite poor shooting. It was DePina’s field goal that gave East a 19-18 lead out of halftime, looking like the rhythm was about to come.

The ’Bolts stagnated, though. After buckets from Courtney McMullen and Samantha Licciardi to put the Avengers up 22-19, both sides went into a scoring slump for several minutes. Initial attempts and put-backs couldn’t find the net, free throws bounced around and rimmed out and plays fell apart as East tried to pull closer.

“East Greenwich is a really good team,” Bochner said. “Even though they’re young, they’re very well coached. They game-planned for us, and they knew we had five options not just two. We did not finish the job. We missed a lot of layups, we were sloppy with the basketball and EG forced us right into it.”

Caito got East on the board again with 9:13 to go to cut the deficit to 22-21, and hit a shot soon after to keep the ’Bolts within 1.

After that point, East made just one shot from the field as the Avengers got enough offense to pull away. Chloe Moss hit a shot with 5:08 left that put East Greenwich ahead 26-23, and two straight layups from Sofia Ruggieri made it a 7-point game.

It would be enough as East Greenwich made enough of its free throws down the stretch to hold off East’s comeback.

DePina finished as the leading scorer for the ’Bolts with eight points and nine rebounds, while Caito wasn’t far behind with seven points, 14 boards, four steals and two blocks. Shooting guard McKenzie Richards, who had four points in the first half, was shut out after halftime. Forward Tatyana Correia added 10 rebounds.

“I’m sure rebounding-wise we did our job, we just didn’t finish,” Bochner said. “We probably had 12 put-backs that we missed, and that hurts. That’s a killer.”

East spread the wealth better in the first half, with Coutu getting the ball to an open Shayna Cousineau twice to put East out in front 12-9 in the early going.

DePina scored East’s last four points, including a layup and two free throws, to put the ’Bolts ahead 17-16 late in the first. Freshman guard Julia Matus gave the Avengers a slim lead going into the break when she drilled two shots from the charity stripe.

The Avengers outperformed the ’Bolts at the free throw line, but just barely. The Avengers shot 40.9 percent from the line (9-for-22), but East only made five of its 14 attempts for a 35.7 percent mark. The ’Bolts also missed their first six free throw attempts of the second half.

The ’Bolts will play four of their final six games on the road, beginning with a contest at East Providence (8-5) at 7 p.m. Tuesday night. Results were not available at press time.

Following the Townies, the final five opponents for East have a combined record of 22-41.

“It was a setback, but the pressure’s off us now,” Bochner said. “We don’t have to be concerned about being undefeated. We want to win our division, and we still can. It’s definitely a setback, but the question is ‘How can we bounce back from this?’ There’s still a lot of basketball left, and I think we just have to fight through it.”

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here