Mixed Results for East Hampton

Unofficially, it had been 15 years since the East Hampton boys last won the Liberty Bank Holiday Tournament. For sure, it had been a long time. So, when the Bellringers posed for a photo with a trophy that had eluded the team since many of the players were in diapers, there were plenty of smiles as the team traded an ignominious stretch for a modest two-game game winning streak and a more confident mind-set.

East Hampton broke open a one-point game in the final 32 seconds with six free throws by Matt Vasquenza to defeat Old Saybrook 46-41 in the tournament title game Thursday night at home.

Earlier, the East Hampton girls lost the tournament title game 50-37 to Lyman Memorial.

The boys’ game was close throughout. Old Saybrook led 19-18 at the half as both teams struggled to find some offense. It did not help the Bellringers that Vasquenza sat for 8:06 of the half with two early fouls. Old Saybrook, too, was without its starting point guard, Sam Redway, who missed the game with a broken foot. Asa result, both offenses suffered as defense ruled the half.

“We preach defense to these guys,” said Assistant Coach Jeff Madej. “Today they finally bought into it. It was a great effort by the whole team. There was no weak links on defense. I can’t be more proud of them, the whole staff is proud of them. I know Coach [Parker] Strong is very proud of them.”

East Hampton senior center Kyle Adams thought that coming out strong and keeping the game close early on, something the Bellringers have not done this season, was key.

“A lot less turnovers in the beginning of the game,” he said. “What has killed us early has been we get down 10 points at the beginning of every game.”

Both offenses picked it up some in the second half, which began with Adams making a steal, passing the ball to Vasquenza who hit Marvin Gorgas for a layup and a 20-19 lead. From there, the teams took turns leading by slim margins until Vasquenza threaded the defense with a diagonal bullet pass from the left elbow through the lane to a waiting Adams who laid it in for a 26-25 lead. Following an Old Saybrook timeout with 2:41 to go in the quarter, Adams found Jeff Pratt for two points to put East Hampton up three. A short time later Pratt drilled a three-pointer for a 32-28 advantage.

The Bellringers took a 34-31 lead into the fourth but could not shake off the Rams. Adams scored off a nice assist from Pratt to put East Hampton up 36-33, but Max Alden, who led Old Saybrook with 14 points, scored on a lay-in after a scramble for a rebound. After two free throws from Nate Heroux put the Bellringers back up by three, a basket by Andrew DeAntonis again drew the Rams within one, 38-37. East Hampton (2-3) finally put the game away with Vasquenza’s free throws and timely defense.

The big difference in the game to Old Saybrook Coach Tim Arsenault was the play at point guard.

“We don’t make any excuses but our senior point guard broke his foot last Thursday,” he said. “Matt does a nice job for them. He was the difference. We have a junior point guard who does a really good job behind [Redway], but he didn’t have a very good game tonight and part of it is because of what Matt does to him. They rebounded well against us, too. The first half in particular.

“Those two things just killed us.”

Madej agreed that his team’s rebounding was a factor.

“Our bigs are two of the best bigs in the league,” he said. “We need them to rebound just like that every single game. We’ve been asking our guys as a team to have better team rebounding. Lately, they’ve been stepping up. Everything we ask them, they just nod their head and go to work every day.”

What East Hampton did not employ much of was the half-court press it unveiled Tuesday night with success.

“We thought our man-to-man was working better than we’ve seen it,” Madej said. “We ran [the press] once and they got a bucket right away, so we went right back to our man-to-man. That was our bread and butter tonight. We locked them down and we weren’t going to go away from it.”

For the game, East Hampton was 11-for-18 from the free-throw line. Old Saybrook, 2-for-2. Vasquenza went to the line nine times, making seven. He finished with 13 points.

The game between the Shoreline Conference rivals will not count as a league game because it came within the holiday tournament. The two will again meet in East Hampton on Jan. 9. Old Saybrook (3-3) will try to bounce back against Old Lyme and Westbrook next week.

“We thought we’d be playing a little better than we are right now,” Arsenault said. “We’re just going to try and get better. We played really well against Coginchaug, should have won the game, lost by [41-36] about a week and half ago. So, we think we can play with the better teams in the league. We just have to figure out a way to play more consistently.”

Adams scored nine points for East Hampton, Heroux had nine, Pratt seven and Gorgas six.

“It feels good. It’s been a while since we got this,” Adams said. “I feel like we’re going to start snowballing. We finally got our rhythm down, so I feel like we’ll be good.”

East Hampton played without coach Parker Strong, who is on his honeymoon. In Strong’s absence, Athletic Director Shaun Russell assumed head coaching duties on Thursday night.

The Bellringers will next play Coginchaug Jan. 5 at home.

Girls’ Basketball

Lyman Memorial 50, East Hampton 37: The Bellringers fell behind early, trailed by 18 at the half, and could not catch up to the Bull Dogs.

The game was a microcosm of East Hampton’s season. The Bellringers came out flat and struggled to score points on the way to a 28-11 first-half deficit, then showed in the second half what they were capable of, with a sharper offense and better effort on both sides of the court as they pulled to within nine at one point.

“We had a flat start. They just looked very confused to me,” Coach Shaun Russell said. “I expected to see 32 minutes of what I saw in the second half, which was playing their butts off, playing together and doing the things they are capable of doing. The first half was void of all of that. In some ways it was void of the effort and enthusiasm required to play in this kind of game.

“This particular team is never going to be good enough to spot anybody a 17-point lead and think we’re going to be able to come all the way back from that.”

Especially a team playing as well as Lyman. The Bulldogs won for the sixth time in seven games.

The second half, however, was a different story. A three-pointer by Sarah Denihan with 6:03 left in the game closed the gap to 39-30. Over the next couple of minutes East Hampton (2-5) had opportunities to cut further into its deficit but couldn’t capitalize. Finally, a putback by Emily Peay (10 points) increased the Bulldogs’ lead to 41-30 with just over four minutes remaining.

“They did a great job,” Russell said of his team in the second half. “They got the lead down to nine at some point. We forced [Lyman] to continue to play throughout. I thought we did some real good things in the second half. Even in the midst of that, we shot ourselves in the foot a few times with a few easy misses even during the run. The focus, the effort, the intensity, all the things I would say were lacking in the first half, were present in the second half.”

Denihan scored 15 in the half and 22 for the game.

“Sarah had the kind of game you would expect a three-year starter, senior to have,” Russell said.

Part of East Hampton’s success in the second half was due to its use of a full-court press, which clearly rattled Lyman.

“I thought Becca Gustine was very instrumental with everything that went on in the second half and certainly with the pressure," Russell said. “She has the kind of athletic ability to force some mistakes on the other team. We were playing basically a full-court zone pressure with some man principals and made a few man adjustments added into it. I thought the kids responded great to it. That changed the tempo of the game to a point where we had a chance to close the gap. I was very happy with that.”

In the end, however, the hole the Bellringers dug in the first half was too much to overcome.

“I see a lot of things I like. It’s just not enough of them strung together and not enough of them at the same time,” Russell said. “The second half, I told the kids ‘I choose to remember that. I’m going forward on that.’”

Klaudia Komarnicka scored seven points for East Hampton, Adrianna Zawodniak added six. Casey Kelley led Lyman Memorial with 13 points.

East Hampton will next play Old Saybrook at home on Tuesday, hoping to show more of how it played in the second half than it did in the first.

“The second half, I feel good about,” Russell said. “The first showed many of our flaws.”