East Hampton Boys and Girls Advance

It was a good night for East Hampton basketball. The boys’ and girls’ teams had struggled with the early part of their schedule, but bounced back in convincing fashion with victories in the Liberty Bank Holiday Tournament on Tuesday night in East Hampton.

The boys won their first game of the season and first under new coach Parker Strong, beating Lyman Memorial 63-51 behind 18 points from Matt Vasquenza.

“It feels really good,” Strong said, “It’s always nice to get that first one out of the way. Maybe I’m too big picture, but we have to be ready to move on to Old Saybrook on Thursday.  We have things to work on. There are still things I was not happy with. We want to continue to get better.”

Early on it didn’t look good for East Hampton (1-3). Joe Olearnick scored five quick points including a three-pointer to give the Bulldogs a 12-10 lead after the first quarter to get Lyman Memorial (1-3) started on a 14-2 run. Trailing 21-12 with 4:03 remaining in the first half, Strong called timeout.

“We were in a danger zone,” Strong said. “[Lyman] came ready to play. They were making the plays.”

The Bellringers responded with a 17-4 run to take a 29-25 lead into halftime.

So, what words of wisdom did Strong impart on his team during the timeout?

“No. I’m not going to take any credit for that,” he said. “I haven’t made any shots this year and I haven’t got one rebound. The kids came out of the huddle ready to play, ready to execute.”

Marvin Gorgas got the run started with a steal and two free throws and ended the half with another steal and two free throws.

“Marvin did a great job today,” Strong said. “He did an outstanding job in trapping, rotating, crashing the glass. “From what he was doing to today, it’s night and day and hopefully he can carry it over into Old Saybrook.”

The run continued deep into the third quarter, aided by a half-court trapping defense. East Hampton scored the first 12 points of the third quarter to take a 41-25 lead. In all, the Bellringers outscored the Bulldogs 29-4 in 9:31.

“The way our defense was the first three games, it was not even close to what we needed,” Strong said. “We’re not going to win games that way. So, we decided to try something new. For a while, we were a little out of synch, guys not going to the right spots. Once we really got it working, we really turned it on. I don’t know what the run was to begin the second half, but we kind of blew them out of the water. That was from our defense. We created turnovers and they led to points and the next thing you know it’s a double-digit game.”

The run ended after an intentional foul was called on Kyle Adams.

The game had begun to get a little chippy, with numerous fouls called in the second half, several of them hard fouls.

Up until that time, Adams was having a strong game, scoring 10 points, but his night ended with the intentional foul. According to Strong, his senior was defending a teammate. Adams thought Vasquenza had been bowled over and retaliated.

“That’s not what we do at East Hampton, so he sat the rest of the game because that’s not acceptable,” Strong said. “He’ll be fine. He’s not going to do it again otherwise he’s going to have a stiffer penalty. We’ll move on from here. That’s not something we encourage or condone.”

In the second half, 23 fouls were called.

“We fouled them and they fouled us,” Strong said. “I don’t think that the calls were bad. There were some vicious fouls. I think the referees did a good job of calling the fouls so the game doesn’t get out of hand.”

Nine players scored for East Hampton, led by Vasquenza’s 18 and Adams’ 10. Nate Heroux added nine and Gorgas had eight.

“[Vasquenza] did a nice job attacking the seams and finding people,” Strong said of his sophomore point guard. “I’m really pleased with what he did today.”

Strong’s biggest frustration through the first three games had been the defense, but he liked what he saw on Tuesday night.

“Our defense really came on for us," he said. "That’s something we can be very proud about and I’m very excited about for the future.”

East Hampton will play Old Saybrook in the championship game of the Liberty Bank Holiday Tournament at 8 p.m. on Thursday at home.

Girls’ Basketball

East Hampton 51, Amistad Academy 14: Sarah Denihan scored 15 points and Klaudia Komarnicka 10 as the Bellringers dominated the winless Wolves.

For an offense that had been ailing through the first five games, Amistad proved the perfect remedy. East Hampton jumped out to a 12-0 lead and held Amistad (0-7) scoreless until T’Nasia Brown’s basket made it 20-2 with just over three minutes left in the half.

“What I was happy about tonight, was that we won a game we should of won,” coach Shaun Russell said. “We won it in a fashion that allowed us to feel good about the way we played. And I thought the way we played was a continuation of the way we finished the game against Coginchaug, which was that we’re playing hard now all the time.”

Leading 23-5 heading into the second half, the Bellringers never looked back. Denihan began the third quarter with a steal and layup and East Hampton was on the way to scoring 23 points, its most in any quarter this season, for a 46-11 lead.

For the most part, East Hampton (2-4) has played well defensively this season, but against the Wolves, they turned it up a notch, creating offense out of turnovers.

“We got hands on a lot of balls,” Russell said. “What we did tonight which we hadn’t done, we made some hay with those turnovers. For us, we need every easy point available. Every layup, every free throw that we can get, we have to get. I thought that’s probably the big difference in tonight in terms of creating a cushion that you can work with, is turning those good defensive plays and getting some payback. For us, if we don’t get some offense out of defense, there are going to be a lot of long nights.”

What Russell seemed to like most of all though was ball movement, the overall sharpness to the offense and his team’s aggressiveness.

“I thought we had some excellent interior passing. The big kids did a tremendous job,” he said. “I thought the ball was moved very well on the interior. We had several possessions with minimal to no dribbles, four or five good passes on the reversal, attacking the zone. I liked the aggressiveness. I thought almost every mistake was aggressive. It was in the right direction, going the right way. There wasn’t many passing mistakes. There wasn’t much playing on their heels.”

Adrianna Zawodniak and Megan Close added eight points each for East Hampton, which had eight players score.

“I thought there was a lot of contributions,” Russell said. “I’m continuing to see some of the same things more often, which makes me happy. I thought there was a lot of good basketball tonight.”

Next up for East Hampton is Lyman Memorial in the championship game of the Liberty Bank Holiday Tournament at 6 p.m. on Thursday at home.