Inexperienced East Granby Girls Cagers Edge Somers 35-33

Just how inexperienced is the East Granby girls basketball team, which lost nine players, including four starters, from last year’s 19-6 squad that advanced to the state Class S quarterfinals?

Before its first game of the season against Somers Friday evening, several of the team’s new starting players asked head coach Tim Doherty what the protocol was for introductions.

They had no idea.

“They were starting for the first time in their life, and they were like, ‘What do we do? Do we shake the [opposing] coach’s hand?’” Doherty said. “They didn’t know what to do.”

So it wasn’t surprising that the callow Crusaders took three and a half quarters to find their groove, coming from behind to defeat an undermanned Somers (1-1) squad 35-33 at East Granby High School.

“It wasn’t a great win, but it was a win,” Doherty said.

Indeed, the low score was due more to early season jitters than it was intense defense, as both teams struggled to hit their shots, including uncontested layups, particularly in the first half.

“The bottom line in basketball is you’ve got to put the ball in the hoop,” Somers head coach Alan Walker said. “We had a ton of opportunities. With young kids, you jump on them too much, you may be in a situation where their confidence is down because they know they’ve missed. You don’t have to tell them they’ve missed. … But in the long run, it ended up hurting us.”

Senior center Kara Dumas, the lone returning starter, was the secret sauce for East Granby (1-0), pouring in 10 points and grabbing eight rebounds, while Eileen Dempsey and Mairead Loschi each chipped in nine points.

Dumas and Dempsey led East Granby on an 13-2 run at the end of the third quarter and beginning of the fourth, turning a 17-11 deficit into a 24-19 lead with 5:35 left in the game.

The turning point, according to Walker, was when starting point guard Kylen O’Hearn, who was filling in for the injured Diandra DeRosa (25 points against Lyman Memorial on Wednesday), went down with an ankle injury of her own late in the third quarter, which helped spark the Crusaders’ run.

“After that, our offense made too many mistakes,” Walker said. “Our defense looked good in the first three quarters, but it broke down in the fourth quarter. It really hurt us at the end of the game. … We were already pretty beat up before [O’Hearn’s injury]. We’re a little snake bit with injuries.”

Hailee Stetson led Somers by submitting a game-high 12 points along with six rebounds and two steals, while O’Hearn had eight points and Kelsey Charetto had three points, seven rebounds and four steals.

Somers took advantage of Dempsey's and Dumas' early foul trouble and appeared to grab the momentum by going on a 7-0 run at the end of the first half, courtesy of a layup by O’Hearn, a three-pointer by Kathryn LaVallee (5 points) and a Stetson buzzer beater to take a 12-9 lead at halftime.

Both teams continued to struggle to find their offensive rhythm at the beginning of the second half and LaVallee’s basket with 2:12 left in the third quarter gave the Spartans what looked like an insurmountable six-point lead, 17-11.

“I told the kids at halftime, ‘The team that wants to win this game more is going to win it,’” Doherty said. “I thought that in the first half, Somers outplayed us. In the third quarter, I thought they continued to outplay us.”

But the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth belonged to the Crusaders, as Dempsey gave East Granby its first lead since the first half with a three-pointer to make it 20-18 with 6:57 left in the game.

East Granby eventually built up its lead to 34-27 with less than a minute left on a Loschi layup that finished a break that Dempsey started with a steal.

“In the fourth quarter, we were thankfully able to turn it around,” Doherty said.

With less than a minute left, Stetson and O’Hearn hit threes to make the game close, but the Somers comeback fell short.

“We were lucky to hang on,” Doherty said.