By Michael Letendre
BRISTOL – The Bristol Eastern girls basketball team ended its CCC South showdown against Lewis Mills early on Tuesday evening – leading by 14 after just one period of play, ramping that edge up to 37 late – cruising to a 54-24 victory from the Thomas M. Monahan Gymnasium in Bristol.
The Lancers (7-1 overall) limited the Spartans (3-3) to just 7-of-54 shooting from the field (13-percent) as the home team pressed the visitors into oblivion, forcing over 30 turnovers.
“I thought the kids did a great job defensively,” said Eastern coach Tony Floyd. “The intensity started from the get-go at the beginning of the game. That’s what I was very impressed with. Even with the press, half court, full court, I thought they did a great job.”
“We really took [Mills] out of their game, we never let them get into the flow [and] we hit the boards really well today which was something that we haven’t done in a while.”
Eastern’s Cassie Sward easily had her best game of the season, dropping in a season-high 16 points to go along with two steals.
She ended her evening going 8-for-8 from the free throw line despite a fan who had some sort of coughing attack each and every time she splashed in a charity toss.
“Cassie took advantage of the things that they gave her,” said Floyd of Sward. “She made a couple nice shots, she got to the basket, she hit on transition and she got up and made her shots on the foul line. She did a little bit of everything.”
“She played some pretty good defense today, too.”
Vanessa Drury was on point against Mills, turning the ball over just once, as she totaled 11 points, two rebounds, seven assists and five steals while even blocking a shot over second half play.
She pressed and pressed and pressed, leaving the Mills offense jumbled and fractured at times.
“Vanessa did a great job defensively on” Layla Ljubuncic said Floyd. “She did a great job running the team and getting everybody involved, especially the young kids – getting them up to speed on what we’re doing and now you can see they’re understanding what we want out there.”
The player of the game could have also been Lauren Ayotte who nearly captured his first scholastic double-double.
Her stat-line was tremendous as she poured in eight points, nine rebounds, nabbed four steals and even blocked a shot.
She was simply here, there and everywhere on the court against the Spartans.
“Lauren Ayotte had a super game today,” said Floyd. “Defensively, offensively, she did all the little things. She’s that blue collar worker that you don’t see [all the things] she does on the court. She’s that kid, that missing link you need on a team that really supports the kids, really communicates well with the kids.”
Floyd said the duo of Autumn Udoh (10 points, 10 rebounds, five blocks, four steals) and Amanda Noel (four points, team-high 12 rebounds, five blocks, four steals) rebounded the ball extremely well as the Eastern front court combined for 31 total boards.
During three straight possessions for the Spartans early in the first frame, Udoh rejected three straight shots while Noel also blocked several attempts later in the game.
In fact, every starter tallied at least one blocked shot over the winning endeavor.
Ljubuncic led the Spartans with 10 points but the shooter never got on track thanks in part to that suffocating defense by the Lancers.
Trailing 2-0, Eastern rallied off 18 straight points in the first period as Noel and Sward hit jumpers, several different players canned free throws and when Vanessa Drury cashed in on two foul shots, it was an 18-2 game with 1:23 left to play in the stanza.
With the defense churning, limiting Mills to 1-of-23 shooting from the field to start the game, the Kingstreeters got out in transition, zipping up a 13-1 run to capture a 31-5 cushion with 2:59 remaining in the first half.
Savannah Drury started the second period with a jumper, Udoh canned a shot, Vanessa Drury dropped in a 3 and when Ayotte made a steal and flipped in a lay-up, Eastern was ahead by 26 points as Ayotte was mobbed by her teammates during the immediate timeout by the Spartans.
Mills scored the final eight points of the half with Ljubuncic netting five, but the program trailed 31-13 at the break.
In the third tilt, the Spartans were limited to just four free throws, failing to make a field goal in the period. The squad went over 14 minutes without hitting a bucket during one stretch.
A 15-3 Eastern run was punctuated by a Udoh jumper and when Vanessa Drury found Sward for a slick lay-up at the third period buzzer, Mills trailed 46-17 with eight minutes to play.
And over the first five minutes of the fourth frame, Eastern made it even more of a romp.
Sward dropped in four consecutive free throws, Udoh added in two of her own and when Noel putback a miss, Eastern was rolling at 54-17 with 3:02 remaining.
Floyd reserves mopped up to end the showdown as the Kingstreeters improved to 7-1 overall via the thirty-point triumph.
“We were communicating better out there defensively,” said Floyd. “We haven’t done that a lot and I thought they really did a good job today defensively on that. I was very proud of them.”
BRISTOL EASTERN 54, LEWIS MILLS 24
from the Thomas M. Monahan Gymnasium, Bristol
Lewis Mills (3-3) 4 9 4 7 – 24
Bristol Eastern (7-1) 18 13 15 8 – 54
LEWIS MILLS (24): Jillian Tiso 0 3 3, Taytum Fitzgerald 0 0 0, Sadie Aston 1 3 5, Brooke Martineau 1 0 2, Anna Yandow 0 0 0, Abriana Wroblewski 1 0 2, Haley Boyajian 0 0 0, Maddie Day 0 0 0, Lillian Martineau 0 1 1, Layla Ljubuncic 4 1 10, Liza Putnam 0 1 1. Totals: 7 9 24.
BRISTOL EASTERN (54): Vanessa Drury 3 4 11, Natalia Vye 0 0 0, Alaina Joy 0 0 0, Cassie Sward 3 10 16, Jenna Azab 0 0 0, Amanda Noel 2 0 4, Lauren Ayotte 4 0 8, Savannah Drury 2 0 5, Emily Zurowski 0 0 0, Autumn Udoh 3 4 10. Totals: 17 18 54.
Three-pointers Made: Layla Ljubuncic (LM), Vanessa Drury (BE), Savannah Drury (BE).
Records: Bristol Eastern 7-1 overall; Lewis Mills 3-3.
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