Knights Overcome Slow Start to Take Victory

The girls basketball team started off the post season on the right foot with a 56-31 victory over Windsor Locks in the North Central Connecticut Conference tournament.

With the win, No. 2 Ellington will face No. 3 Suffield on Wednesday. No. 7 Windsor Locks will now begin to prepare for the state tournament where it will most likely meet Hale-Ray from Moodus.

“It’ll be tough battle,” Windsor Locks coach Doug Knowe said. “It’ll be tough, it’ll be quick, and we’ll go from there.”

Windsor Locks (12-9) jumped out to an early lead but the Knights came back to take the lead late in the first quarter and would never relinquish it.

“We started missing some jump shots and once those didn’t go down, Ellington is a team that you can’t give up possessions to,” Knowe said. “You have to score and then come and play great defense.”

Ellington coach Lauren Lovetere-Beeler was not completely surprised by the slow start of her team. The Knights have recently been facing teams with only a few wins and have not been challenged in a while.

“I knew it was going to take us a little while to bounce back,” she said. “I think we rebounded and we’re good going into Suffield. But we split with them this season so it’s going to be a dogfight. They looked good. They looked better than I think I’ve seen them in the regular season.”

In the second quarter, Claudia Perez hit back-to-back three-pointers that, in conjunction with Windsor Locks’ missed shots, gave the Knights (17-3) a more comfortable lead.

“Those threes were big threes to help them stretch the gap,” Knowe said. “If we hit a couple of those shots, we might be in a different game.”

Ellington held Mariah Brown to only six points in the game.

“They did a nice job,” Knowe said. “They were flashing two at her every possession. She had trouble getting going today. When we were missing some of those open jump shots, it makes it harder for a scorer like Mariah when she’s kicking it out and those people aren’t hitting. Ellington, gotta credit their defense tonight. They did a nice job getting to our shooters and they challenged us.”

Lovetere-Beeler was pleased that Brown had no points at the half and congratulated her team on that, but told them that they needed to stay on top of it.

“She got a lot of shots off – their entire team got a lot of shots off – and they just weren’t falling for them which was lucky for us,” she said. “I bet if they hit 50 percent of their shots, we would have lost. They got a lot of shots off. Too many.”

While Knowe credited the Ellington defense, Lovetere-Beeler wants to see more from it.

“Our defense is letting too much in,” she said. “We peaked defensively around the time we beat Avon. Our defense has slowly been going down. I think some of it is the caliber of team we’ve been playing. It got better towards the end (of this game), we switched defenses and it got much better. It still needs to improve though.”

Ellary Douglas led Windsor Locks with nine points and Jenna Wojtas added eight. Nikki LaPierre scored six points for the Raiders.

Kelly Conley had 20 points and Julie Gage added 14 for Ellington.

“Kelly and Julie are two of the best players in the league,” Knowe said.

Perez finished with nine points and Savannah Kresge had eight. Brittany Lemire added four.

Conley was double teamed for a while and Lovetere-Beeler told her team to get the ball to Conley, whether she was doubled or not. Eventually they did, but in the meantime, other players took over.

“Some other girls that haven’t been scoring stepped up,” Lovetere-Beeler said. “It was nice.”

With any luck, the defense will get back in gear and everyone will continue to step up for the Knights.