East Hampton Wins Big Over Westbrook

Sophomore Klaudia Komarnicka scored 16 points to lead the Bellringers to a 50-23 win over Westbrook last night in East Hampton.

Westbrook (1-19), took advantage of East Hampton's sloppy play in the first quarter and was able to finish the quarter trailing by only 6-5.

The Lady Bellringers continued to be out of sync offensively early in the second quarter, but against a struggling opponent such as Westbrook, they were able to work their way out of their funk without giving up the lead.  Freshman Megan Close (five points) and Komarnicka carried the scoring load by combining for 15 of the teams 24 first half points.

"We got off to a sluggish start but I thought we picked it up in the second quarter and got some great minutes from the kids on the bench," coach shaun Russell said.  "Our energy level went way up and we were able to get some separation by halftime."

East Hampton (14-4) scored 18 second-quarter points but Russell wasn't pleased with his teams overall performance at this point.  In the second quarter and only up eight, he had four of his starters on the bench, and with Katie Dash being a game-time decision to not play, he rolled the dice and came up big with excellent contributions from Close, Kacie Goodreau (three points), Morgan Langenfeld, Hailey Picking and Sarah Piscatilli. 

His team took a 24-12 lead into the locker room and Russell was determined to get his starters focused on the business at hand.

"There's a lot of ways to motivate players and sometimes when players have trouble focusing and you are not getting the energy that's expected then I will go to the bench and get five kids that will play hard, play together and play smart, and tonight I thought I did find that in the second quarter," Russell said.

Whatever was said in the locker room resonated well as the Lady Bellringers were more focused and found their stride on both ends of the floor as they opened up a 44-18 lead by the end of the quarter.

Ashley Chasse played a solid all-around game, contributing nine points, and Booth was starting to heat up by scoring six of her 10 points in the third quarter before she sustained a game-ending injury to her left ankle.

With 3:58 left in the third quarter Booth went up for a rebound and came down awkwardly on her ankle and had to be helped to the locker room.

East Hampton will next play on Monday night when they travel to Clinton to take on Morgan at 7 p.m.