After falling by just three points to FCIAC rival and conference leader Fairfield Warde on Monday night, the Greenwich High girls basketball team were just able to maintain a fourth quarter lead Wednesday night to take down an impressive Stamford High team 64-55.
The Lady Cardinals(10-2, 7-3) were able to jump out to an 11-3 run to start the final quarter of play, forcing the Black Knights(12-2, 9-2) to take a timeout with 4:46 left to play and eventually taking their biggest lead of the game at 56-44 a minute later.
But Stamford wouldn’t give up, as a 9-0 run of their own put them within three points with under two minutes to go.
“I’m glad that my team didn’t put their heads down,” said GHS head coach Chrys Hernandez. “There was a point in the game where Stamford was within just a few points late and we were able to regain our focus and get back to our game plan which was to take care of the ball and work the ball around.”
Back-to-back driving layups from Jayla Faison and Caroline Beneville gave Greenwich the final edge in the game and crucial post play from both Emily Anderson and Abbie Wolf was enough to seal the victory and prevent the Lady Cardinal’s first losing skid of the season.
Anderson finished with 19 points and four rebounds while Wolf scored 18 points and pulled down 15 rebounds. Faison scored all seven of her points in the fourth quarter while Beneville added seven points of her own.
Shaye Galletta scored eight points with key second-half free throws and Kim Kockenmeister forced several Black Knight turnovers on the defensive side.
“We absolutely learned from Monday’s game,” Wolf said following the game. “We rushed the ball when we didn’t need to, but tonight we learned from our mistakes.”
During the third quarter, Wolf scored her 1,000th career point for GHS and reflected on the impressive accomplishment after the game.
“It means a lot. 1,000 points is a lot of games, a lot of heartbreaks and a lot of great moments. It kind of feels surreal to be here in my senior year with five games left. The Greenwich community has been great to me.”
For Stamford, captain Tiana England scored a game-high 26 points, while Andrea O’Connor added 15 of her own. England went 6-for-7 from the free throw line including 11 points in the fourth quarter for the sharpshooting senior.
While the win is a positive for Greenwich, they have gone just 3-2 after a scorching 7-0 start to the season.
The Lady Cardinals will finish their three game home stand on Friday when they host Bridgeport Central on senior night scheduled to tip at 5:30 p.m.
“We knew we gave up a lot of offensive rebounds to Fairfield Warde on Monday night,” GHS head coach Hernandez said. “Tonight we struggled a little bit with that and it’s still something we need to work on.”
