The Greenwich High School girls basketball team returned to its winning way Friday afternoon. Playing a solid game and dominating the second half, the Lady Cardinals blitzed Norwalk High School 80-50 Friday night.
“I am happy with the way we played today,” GHS head coach Chrys Hernandez said. “We are still struggling with a little bit of inconsistency. Although we played the game we wanted to play and the pace we wanted to play and got the shots we wanted to get, it’s going to be a test to see if we can carry that into next week and the next bunch of games.”
Leading by only six to start the second half, Big Red stormed ahead due to its timely shooting and tenacious defense.
“Our defensive intensity was our strong point tonight,” Hernandez said. “We talked at halftime about controlling the boards. We were dead even on the boards at halftime and Norwalk did a great job crashing the boards and getting a lot of easy putbacks. I think the way we crashed the boards and got those transition points in the second half was huge.”
Senior captain Abbie Wolf led all scorers with 25 points and added an impressive 22 rebounds. She also finished with five blocks.
“Abbie’s definitely been of the consistent players over the course of the season,” Hernandez said. “We’re going to need her to continue to be consistent if we are going to be successful. We don’t have a very deep bench as we have had in the past, so we really can use how consistent she is. Abbie is constantly producing. She’s not just focused on herself and she shares the ball.”
Not to be outdone was Emily Anderson, who finished with 14 points and nine rebounds.
Caroline Beneville pitched in with 12 points and Shaye Galletta added 11 points and eight rebounds. Jayla Faison led the team with six assists.
After both Norwalk and Greenwich exchanged three-pointers to start the second half, Big Red started to pull away. Galletta scored on the offensive rebound and putback and then both Beneville and Galletta fired back-to-back baseline three-pointers.
A layup in the paint by Wolf with 5:33 to play in the quarter extended the lead to 43-27 and it got extended to 20 when Galletta cut through the NHS defense and found the layup.
“We know that we can be a deadly team if we work together,” Hernandez said. “That’s what you saw in the second half. I told the girls that I was proud of how unselfish we were. We moved the ball around a lot better in the second half and had a lot of open looks.”
A few foul shots by the combination of Kockenmeister, Galletta and Faison, and a layup off by Anderson extended the lead to 50-29 with 3:20 left in the third.
Although Greenwich had the lead throughout much of the first half, the Cardinals had issues closing the door on Norwalk.
After Amanda Yu hit the bank shot with five seconds left in the opening quarter, Greenwich was up 16-12. They extended the lead to 23-14 before the Lady Bears could blink. Wolf drained the easy layup 11 seconds in the quarter and followed that up with the offensive rebound and putback on Big Red’s ensuing possession.
Although Norwalk’s Ashley Wilson sank the long distance jumper for two points, Greenwich’s Wolf answered, hitting a foul shot and then once again grabbed the rebound and scoring on the putback during the team’s next possession. With 5:03 to play, Greenwich built itself a 23-14 lead.
However the Bears clawed back into the game, as Asiah Knight hit the difficult layup and Brianna Fitzgerald then drilled the breakaway layup. A long range pull-up jumper by Wilson and back-to-back layups by Knight helped Norwalk trim the deficit down to four.
In total, Knight led the Bears with 19 points, while Wilson added 11 points.
Wolf stopped the bleeding with 46.2 seconds to play in the half, as she dominated the lane, grabbed the offensive rebound and sank both her foul shots.
“We need to take care of the ball,” Hernandez said. “Tonight’s game we still struggled with turning the ball over. If we can take care of the ball, things will take care of themselves.”
