By Michael Letendre
BRISTOL – Bristol Eastern’s All-State guard/forward Ciara Collins has been a primetime performer for the program ever since she stepped on the court at the Thomas M. Monahan Gymnasium in 2018.
And this past Monday, Collins helped beat Bristol Central one more time as the Lancers defeated the Rams by a 63-51 final.
The senior ended up winning seven of the eight games she played in against the Rams over her career.
Collins is as dangerous as any player in the state and if another Class L opponent isn’t familiar with the talented sharp-shooter, she has the capability to help her squad beat any given opponent.
The senior, averaging over 24 points-per-game this season, took a minute to talk to TBE on Monday after the Lancers defeated the Rams:
Michael Letendre: “Can you believe this was your final Bristol Eastern/Bristol Central game of your scholastic career?”
Ciara Collins: “It’s crazy. It really is. I literally feel like it was just yesterday that I played in my first Eastern/Central game. I remember it was away. I was so nervous. I was just new on the team and I was ‘oh my god. Like, it’s Central.’ I always went to the games growing up and the atmosphere was chaotic. Just playing in that type of atmosphere was nerve-racking. It kind of gave me flashbacks from [last Monday’s game] like ‘oh my god, this is the last one.’ It was super exciting and I’m glad we won. Both teams played great.”
Letendre: “You’ve been knocked down so many times this season but you keep coming back for more. What drives you to just keep battling and battling?”
Collins: “I think it’s just my own competitiveness. I’m not going to let someone take me out like that. I don’t want my head to be taken out of the game so when people start to foul me, I’ve got to put it in the past and I’ve just got to keep going. I know it’s going to happen. The refs aren’t going to call everything. It is what it is so you’ve just got to play through it and that’s what I try to do every game even though I sometimes get a little frustrated. I just try to make up for it in other areas like defense, passing, stuff like that.”
Letendre: “Taigan Parent has sure come on as of late, hasn’t she?”
Collins: “She played amazing tonight [scoring a season-high 16 points against Bristol Central]. Amazing. We knew she had that outside shot. Just the fact that she was wide open taking them, Central left our guards wide open thinking that they weren’t going to shoot, but obviously Emma [Stavens] and Taigan can shoot. And clearly Taigan showed it tonight. She played awesome. I was speechless especially with that buzzer-beating [three-pointer] at the end [of the third period]. That was great.”
Letendre: “Finally, why should opponents fear Bristol Eastern when the state tournament rolls around?”
Collins: “Because we’re the underdog. People come in looking at our record and…even I would be like ‘we can beat this team.’ But that’s not necessarily true. When we come to play, we come to play, and we can beat anyone. We hung in there with big teams [this year]. We hung in there with Newington for a while and we hung in there with Windsor. Just big teams that we’ve played, we can hang in there with anyone as long as we come out to play. We have to play defense, we have to rebound and stuff like that. We can make it pretty far in the tournament I think if we come to play.”
