By David Fierro
The impressive victories are adding up for Greenwich High School’s girls basketball team, which defeated another tough opponent that’s had its number on Tuesday night – a squad that went undefeated against FCIAC competition last season on its way to winning the conference championship.
That opponent, as many may know is Fairfield Ludlowe, which paid a visit to Greenwich High School Tuesday evening and saw the Cardinals’ strengths throughout the FCIAC matchup.
Using a strong second half, getting balanced scoring and playing strong defense, Greenwich defeated Fairfield Ludlowe for the first time since the 2019 season, registering a well-earned 44-38 win. The victory upped Greenwich’s record to 6-2 overall and 3-1 in the FCIAC.
Eight players scored for the Cardinals, who entered halftime in a 20-20 tie against the Falcons, then led 34-30 after three quarters of action.
Greenwich went into Tuesday’s game versus Fairfield Ludlowe, the defending FCIAC Tournament champion, off a tough 42-38 road loss to Brien McMahon, in a game in which the shots weren’t falling for the Cardinals.
Indeed, GHS coach Megan Wax and the Cardinals saw plenty of positive signs in the triumph against Fairfield Ludlowe (4-4).
“I feel like we’re really growing as a team and everyone is positively contributing and it’s really hard to beat a team, where everyone is a threat and everybody is doing things to further a team, whether it’s a defensive stop or taking it to the rim, making your foul shots – I think we did a really good job and everybody on the court helped,” Wax said.
Sophomore guard Madi Utzinger scored a team-best 13 points, while sophomore guard Juliette Pelham added seven points off the bench and sophomore guard/forward Anna Lenschow finished with seven points for Greenwich.
“In practice, we were working on relocating and that’s what we did today and that’s what helped us get open shots,” Utzinger said of the Cards’ offensive efficiency. “We’re all really good ball handlers, we know when to attack and dish and that’s what really helped us today.”
Senior forward/center-tri-captain Julia Monteiro scored five points, while senior forward Riana Xhekaj and sophomore guard Alyssa Gath contributed four points apiece for the victors.
“We really wanted to win knowing our history with Ludlowe, knowing we hadn’t had a win since at least my freshman year,” Monteiro said. “Everyone really wanted it, it was a great team win.”
Ludlowe earned two victories against the Cardinals during the 2022-2023 season, one of which came in the quarterfinal-round of the FCIAC Tournament. Tuesday’s win marked Greenwich’s first victory against Ludlowe since it recorded a 65-50 triumph in December of 2019.
“Last year they had that super team, they went undefeated, so it feels good to beat them,” Xhekaj said. “Coming into the game we knew we lost to them last year, so we had to change our mentality and work together. I think we did that perfectly, especially on defense, our communication was great.”
With the score knotted at 20-20, the Falcons began the second half with six straight points, getting baskets from sophomore Hayden McBean, junior Kate Cimador and sophomore Paige Kilbride.
Then Greenwich made its move. Lenschow swished a deep two-pointer from the left corner, Utzinger made a left-handed layup after executing a nice head fake and senior guard/tri-captain Megan Geiger scored off an offensive rebound, evening the score at 26-26 near the midway point of the third quarter.
A 3-pointer by Pelham from the top of the key against the Falcons’ man-to-man defense, gave GHS the lead for good at 31-20 with just under two minutes to go in the third quarter.
Utzinger made a foul shot and Gath provided a basket, giving Greenwich a 34-30 edge heading into the final quarter. Pelham nailed a long two-point shot and scored on a layup, bringing the home team’s lead up to 39-32 with less than five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter.
“The success came from all team members,” Geiger noted. “Our offense has definitely gotten cleaned up and that will continue. Shout out to our coaches for preparing us extremely well. Everything we did in the game we ran over in practice, so that’s how we got here.”
A basket from Utzinger and a pair of free throws from Xhekaj gave Greenwich advantages of 41-32 and 43-34 late in the fourth quarter.
Meanwhile, Greenwich’s man-to-man defense was sound throughout this FCIAC contest. McBean paced Fairfield Ludlowe with a game-high 14 points, while Cimador added 10 points and Kilbride had seven.
“We’ve been focusing a lot on defense recently, we had nice strong man-to-man defense and were taking away their shot and also their visibility of their lanes and who they were going to try to get their give-and-goes off to,” Wax noted. “Everybody stepped up.”
Utzinger had five points, including a 3-pointer during the first quarter, while Monteiro had four second-quarter points, with two foul shots that put the hosts ahead, 16-15.
Monteiro and Xhekaj did an effective job of crashing the defensive and offensive backboards, grabbing clutch rebounds for the Cards.
“Our rebounding was great,” Xhekaj said. “We aren’t too tall and it’s good to see us getting those boards.”
“There was a lot of good rebounds and then in practice we’ve been working on our ball movement a lot, so that helped cut down on our turnovers, getting that fast ball movement and working on our passes,” Monteiro added.
Geiger had two points and provided a stellar defensive effort for the Cardinals, who also received two points from junior forward Kate Baxendale, who helped GHS in the rebounding department as well.
“Our defense won us the game, we stopped them so many times and we were able to talk on defense and work as a team,” Utzinger noted. “We got a ton of steals.”
“On offense, we were able to get the shot off and dish and get the 3 and it really helped us get points,” Utzinger added.
Greenwich’s next game is Friday, as it hosts FCIAC foe St. Joseph.
