ANSONIA – The Ansonia Lady Tigers defeated the Newton Lady Indians 48-35 in Thursday night WOAC varsity basket action on the Lady Tigers’ home court.
The teams played to a 12-11 score after one quarter of play, with Ansonia taking one point lead to the second period with Rose Barga pacing the Lady Tigers with eight points.
“We did a great job creating turnovers out of our press and then executing on the offensive end once we got the ball,” said Ansonia coach Connor Custenborder.
Ansonia opened second-quarter play on a 13-4 run helped by a full-court smothering press to earn their first double-digit lead of the night, 25-14, with two and a half minutes remaining in the second quarter before the Lady Indians closed out with a 7-2 run sending the teams to the break with the Lady Tigers holding a 27-21 advantage.
“I did not expect us to have the troubles we did starting out,” said Newton coach Stefany Landis. “It definitely impacted the start of the game.”
Period No. 2 went to Ansonia by a 15-10 score, with the Lady Tigers taking a 27-21 advantage to the halftime break.
The teams played to an 11-10 third-quarter score, with Ansonia one point better, giving the Lady Tigers a 37-30 lead with one period to play.
“We did a lot better in the second half,” Coach Landis stated. “We finally got our wits about us, we calmed down, and we were able to break it easily. It’s just hard to undo the damage it did in the first half.”
Newton continued to struggle with Ansonia’s full-court pressure, posting five fourth-quarter points, while the Lady Tigers were logging 11 points, led by London Reichert’s seven points in earning the conference win.
“The girls competed; they left everything they had on the court,” Landis said. “There are things we need to do better, and we’ll continue to work on that and grow. We still have a pretty young team across the board, and there are a lot of games left to play in the season, so we’ll go back and prepare for the next game, and hopefully, we get a little bit better.”
Coach Custenborder credited Rose Barga and Landon Reichert for much of the team’s success in the win.
“Rose driving the ball from the outside and London making post moves from inside really helped us,” said Custenborder.
Reichert led Ansonia and all scorers with a game-high 16 points. R. Barge added 15 Lady Tigers’ points, and Layla VanCulin led Newton with 10 points.
“We’ve been wanting London to go up with it all year and make moves,” Coach Custenborder noted. “We’re happy with how she played tonight, very aggressive and we hope this is a huge confidence builder for her. We believe she is one of the best post-players in the conference, and she showed it tonight. She’s an athlete, she can jump and she was attacking the ball tonight, she wasn’t letting the ball come to here.”
“Rose played great for us, and all of our guards, except for one little spell there, helped us beat their press,” added Custenborder. “ Schmitmeyer gave us energy off the bench as well.”
With the win, Ansonia improves to 7-6 on the season and 5-3 in the WOAC. Newton slips to 4-7 overall and 2-4 in the conference.
BOXSCORE:
ANSONIA 48, NEWTON 35
ANSONIA – L. Reichert 16, R. Barga 15, O. Creager 5, C. Barga 4, A. Best 4, O. Schmitmeyer 4 – TOTALS 18 9-14 1 48
NEWTON – L. VanCulin 10, F. Harbour 7, B. Hines 5, M. Szakal 5, R. Hess 4, M. Denlinger 4 – TOTALS 8 4-9 5 35
3-POINTERS
Ansonia 1 (R. Barga 1)
Newton 5 (L. VanCulin 3, B. Hines 1, M. Denlinger 1)
SCORE by QUARTERS
12-15-10-11 48 Ansonia
11-10-09-05 35 Newton
