WATERBURY — At the beginning of the season, not many spectators of girls basketball would have expected the Bristol Eastern Lancers to advance to the Class L quarterfinals and matchup with the top-seeded team in Holy Cross.
The young bunch which consisted of mainly freshmen and sophomores and just two seniors shocked the league when they finished the regular season 15-5 and then further shocked the state when they advanced to the third round of the state tournament.
Despite falling to the No. 1 Holy Cross Crusaders, the No. 8 Bristol Eastern Lancers proved that while they may have been ahead of schedule this season, they’ll be a tough team to reckon with over the next few years.
Bristol Eastern coach Tony Floyd said he’s proud of how the team developed throughout the season and where they finished in the state tournament. He said they simply ran into a really good team who play at a pace that the Lancers haven’t seen yet.
“Today’s game didn’t exactly show how much they’ve done all year, but [Holy Cross] is a good team and their style of play the kids just didn’t realize how they play and we didn’t respond to it well,” Floyd said. “By the time they responded we were down by ten and we never got going.”
The Lancers got off to a tough start as Holy Cross’ defense was able to force 20 turnovers in the first half with 12 coming in the first quarter. The tough defense allowed the Crusaders to get out on fast breaks and push the score to 24-7 to end the opening quarter.
Holy Cross’ Shania Howard led all scorers with 25 points as she was the main catalyst for the Crusaders’ offense. Howard also scored her 1,000 point.
Autumn Udoh was Bristol Eastern’s leading scorer with 12 points followed by Vanessa Drury with seven points. Floyd said it’s tough to beat a team like Holy Cross with the amount of turnovers that they had early on as well as Udoh and Drury being the only players to find some success offensively.
“They’ve done a great job this year,” Floyd said. “Vanessa as a point guard and as a senior she did a really good job holding these guys together. We have a lot of freshmen and sophomores on this team and I thought she did a great job. Tonight she didn’t have one of her great games, but she needed help and the other team players needed to help her and they weren't ready to respond.”
He said that’s simply because of youth, but the experience that they gained this season will help prepare them to go further in the state tournament next year.
“Now they know the intensity level, how hard people play and what they need to do to play at this level,” Floyd said. “It’s a whole different level from eighth grade, but I thought they all really adjusted very well this year as freshmen. They were thrown into the fire and as the season got going they picked it up.”
He added it’s hard for a freshman to carry the team, but within their roles they played well.
“I was very pleased with how those freshmen and my sophomores played this season,” he said. “They’re getting better.”
