Top-Seeded East Catholic Holds Off Windsor For Basketball Title

UNCASVILLE, CT - The top-seeded East Catholic Eagles won their third state title in five years on Saturday night, besting sixth-seeded Windsor 79-74 in the CIAC Division 1 title game at the Mohegan Sun Arena.

A balanced attack paced the East Catholic effort as the Eagles had a trio of players score more than 18 points to notch the win. Jaylin Hunter's 24 points led the way while Joe Reilly had 20 and Matt Knowling added 19 for the winners, who capped off a 26-1 season with the state's top-tier title.

"We wanted to set the tone early to show them it wasn't going to be the same game (as the CCC final)," Reilly said. "We executed our game plan well and we have such a great group of guys that if we do execute like we can, well, state champs."

Amir Spears led Windsor with 22 points while Corey McKeithan had 20 points. Jordan Riley added 12 while Shomar Leaphart contributed another 10 for the 23-4 Warriors.

The win avenged East Catholic's only loss of the season, an 87-85 loss to Windsor in the CCC championship game.

"Sometimes you need a loss to get your head straight," Eagle coach Luke Reilly said. "We always tell them, we're either winning or we're learning and we learned from that. We learned our lesson well. We've been saying all week, and this is one thing we've been successful at, is just make it about us and control what we can control. That's always been our focus no matter who were playing.""

It was a five-point game late in the third quarter when the Eagles went on a six-point surge to open some breathing room.

Reilly, Hunter and Knowling (2 foul shots) each scored during the stretch as East Catholic turned a 51-46 lead into a 57-46 advantage.

That little bit of an advantage was the Eagles needed as Windsor could only get as close as eight until the final 15 seconds.

Knowling added 11 rebounds and six assists to the winning effort while Hunter had 10 boards, three steals and two blocks.

The Eagles also made 59.3 percent of their shots in the game, hitting 32 of 54 shots.

The Warriors turned to the long ball to try and match East point-for-point, tossing up 19 3-point shots in the first half alone. They finished the game going 12-for-35 beyond the arc.

Knowling said, "We prepared. We wanted to step out on their threes and make them uncomfortable. I thought we did a great job with that."

"We just weren't hitting tonight," Windsor coach Ken Smith said. "That happens. That's how we got here, by our guys being good shooters. We're not going to stop them from doing that."

Story reported by John Nash