Bishop's 27 Paces Suffield Over Granby Memorial

For girls basketball coach Dean Godin, it wasn’t Suffield High guard Brianna Bishop’s 27 points or the Wildcats’ stifling 2-3 zone that led to the Bears’ 54-50 loss on Friday evening in Suffield.

Instead, it was the second, third and even fourth chances that the Wildcats got in their offensive end that swung the pendulum in their favor.

“That won the game for them,” Godin said. “I honestly feel like we lost the game, I don’t feel like we got beat. I feel like we lost it. The second and third chance opportunities against a team that good, you can’t do. Ellington, us and Suffield, they’re the elite teams in the league. They’re going to make noise in the state tournament. They’ve got senior leadership, senior guards. You let those kids have second and third and fourth chances, you just can’t win like that.”

Trailing 28-21 at the half, the Wildcats made an adjustment on defense, switching from a full-court press to a 2-3 zone, which nullified the Bears’ post player Haley Makuch and put pressure on Granby Memorial’s outside shooters.

“That’s why you go to the 2-3, to try to take Haley out of the game,” Godin said. “Haley’s made a transformation from playing guard, to playing on the wing to now playing on the post.
She’s worked really hard.”

The strategy paid off, as Bishop scored 12 of Suffield’s 22 points in the quarter, fueling the comeback that put them up 43-38 at the end of the third.

“She has no fear,” Suffield head coach Jeremiah Brown said of Bishop. “She’s not afraid to make a mistake. It looked like they were pressuring everyone on the team except for her.”

As hot as Bishop was in the third quarter, Granby Memorial went cold, scoring just 10 points in the third.

“When they went to the 2-3, we stopped running our offense,” Godin said. “It’s hard to get quality opportunities when you come down the floor, you pass the ball and you jack up a shot. That’s not how we want to play the game of basketball. It’s not how we’ve been taught how the play the game of basketball. We scored enough points. we didn’t play any defense. The third quarter, we had mental lapses that absolutely killed us. You can’t give a kid like Brianna extra opportunities.”

“We did what we wanted to do,” Brown added. “We took time off the clock. We made them make unforced errors by throwing the ball out of bounds and we closed on their shooters in the zone. The defense carried us in the third quarter.”

Merideth Ouellette also scored 10 points for the Wildcats (10-1, 8-0 NCCC), while Alysia Krzanowski had 8, Rachael Tedone added 7 and Ashley Gleason and Sheila Drakeley each scored a point apiece.

Granby Memorial (9-2, 6-2 NCCC) trailed by as much as 10 points, 51-41, before a late fourth-quarter comeback fell just short.

Kristen Endorf led the Bears with 17 points, while Makuch had 12, Kylynn Kane 6, Gabby Dixon 5, Emily Stone and Emily Uhl each had four and Ellie McDougall scored 2.

Friday marked the second time in three games that Granby Memorial was torched by a tough North Central Connecticut Conference guard. Ellington High’s Kelly Conley scored 31 points in a 63-56 victory over the Bears on Jan. 5.

“Bishop and Conley are the two best,” Goding said. “They’re that good and each one of them has gotten to us this year.”

It was the 10th consecutive victory for the Wildcats, who improved to 10-1 on the year, with the one loss coming against non-conference opponent Notre Dame-Fairfield. The victory also means that Suffield keeps pace with NCCC rival Ellington, who are also undefeated in the conference.

It’s been a while since the Wildcats have been among the NCCC elite. Indeed, Suffield hasn’t won the league’s regular season title since 1978, and last won the conference tournament in 2005.

“[The regular season title is] on our goal list this year,” said Brown, noting that Ellington, SMSA, Avon and Granby also were shooting for the league title. “We feel we have the ability to do so and that’s what drives these girls. It’s too close for comfort. Especially if you want to be ahead and on top of your league. Right now, those three or four teams are the teams to beat.”

Still, despite the second loss in conference, Godin was not ready to say that the regular season title was out of the Bears’ grasp.

“The way we do things is we put kids in a position that they can excel in and tonight we scored enough offensively, we just had too many defensive lapses and we’re not a team that likes to give up that many points,” he said. “So it’s back to the drawing board and we’ve got to learn from this. This is a tough place to play. We’ll be ready for them on game 20 of the season.”

Both teams will be in action on Tuesday, squaring off against two more elite NCCC sides, as Granby Memorial faces Ellington on the road, while Suffield will tip off against Avon also on the road.