Gut Check for Granby Memorial Results in Victory

Bad losses have a way of either snowballing into more poor performances or galvanizing a team.

The members of the girls basketball team chose the former rather than the latter, rebounding from a 25-point loss to Ellington on Jan. 17 to defeat Sports Medical Sciences Academy 53-48 at home in a clash of top-tier NCCC teams on Friday evening.

“It was a serious gut check,” Granby Memorial head coach Dean Godin said. “We could have been seriously demoralized after Ellington and the way we lost. We played the worst we played in a long time - in years.

“We did a lot of soul searching the last two days. … We needed this performance.”

Indeed, the Bears responded with their best all year, according to Godin, as the team played swarming defense and hit clutch shots all game.

“That had to have been the best team basketball we’ve ever played,” Godin said. “We shared the ball tremendously, and it opens up what the offense is supposed to be.

Kristin Endorf led the Bears with a team-high 18 points, while Emily Stone had 9, Gabby Dixon and Haley Makuch each scored six, Michele Guttermuth, Emily Uhl and Ellie McDougall had four apiece and Kylynn Kane had two. Dixon’s points came off two rare three-pointers.

The victory did not come easily, as Granby Memorial (10-3) also had to overcome the terrific performance of SMSA center Morgan Murphy, who scored 25 points in the paint, usually with two Bears defenders draped on her.

“The girls understand what she can do for them,” SMSA head coach Karl Denfield said. “She gets beaten up down low all the time.”

Allie Alston also had 10 points for the Tigers, while Taylor Fascione scored six, Kayla Mercer had five and Kiana Smith added two in the losing effort.

SMSA (10-3) clawed its way back from a nine point deficit to take one-point leads three times late in the fourth quarter, the second-to-last of which came off an Alston basket that gave the Tigers a 46-45 lead with 3:15 left.

But the Bears recaptured the lead when Uhl, who is just a freshman, hit her second huge basket of the quarter to put Granby up 47-46.

“Emily Uhl will be an all-state player at some point,” Godin said. “She has worked and worked and worked and worked, not only to have the guts as a freshman in a big game, an emotional game to take the shots, but to make them in the end. To step in there against the best player we’ve had in the league in a long time, and play her the way she did, hats off to her.”

Murphy still gave SMSA one more lead at 48-47 when she hit a shot down low with 2:28 left, but Granby scored the last six points off an Endorf basket and four free throws by Haley Stone and Emily Stone to seal the victory.

“[Endorf] is so talented, she is one kid that really took the message the last couple of days to heart and really looked within herself,” Godin said. “I’m really proud of her, because the way she played today, she took shots, but they were within the flow of the offense. She was so unselfish. She made some great passes in the first half that opened up her whole game. She played both ends tonight.”

While it was a sweet victory for Granby Memorial, the loss wasn’t a particularly bitter one for SMSA head coach Karl Denfield.

“I was extremely proud [of the players[,” Denfield said. “We played a very good team and they’re disappointed, and I’m disappointed, but they played a great game. I’m proud of them. They play that hard in every game and we’ll do fine.”

The loss marked the second tough loss for the Tigers in a week, as they lost to Ellington, which is tied for the conference lead with Avon and Suffield, on Jan. 13 in overtime.

“I want the win once and a while,” Denfield said. “We just need to learn to finish out. But somebody’s got to win, somebody’s got to lose. I’ll play games like this every day. Everybody played great.”