E.O. Smith Boys Lose First Round of CCC Tournament

did not trail Glastonbury for more than half the game Thursday in the CCC boys basketball tournament first round in Mansfield. But when the Tomahawks took the lead late in the third quarter, E.O. Smith’s offense was out of sync.

The Panthers’ offense could never recover and mount a serious rally the rest of the way and Glastonbury left with a 47-42 victory and a spot in the conference quarterfinals on Saturday against No. 1 seed Northwest Catholic.

Nico Donato scored a game-high 17 points to lead Glastonbury (15-6), the No. 9 seed, to its second straight win after four consecutive losses. Jack Sellew, Justin Morris and Jordan Butler each added seven points for the Tomahawks.

Carter Chatey led eighth-seeded E.O. Smith (15-6) with 13 points and Min Lin added 11. The Panthers, who have lost three of their last six games, will next play in the CIAC Class L state tournament that begins next week.

“We didn’t go inside as much as we usually do,” E.O. Smith coach Ron Pires said. “Our big guys didn’t move well and that hurt us. They [Tomahawks] were physical around the basket. They put a lot of pressure on us and took us out of our offense.”

E.O. Smith could score only 17 points in the second half after entering with a 25-19 lead.  The Panthers were limited to six points in the third quarter -- when Glastonbury took over the game -- on two baskets by Lin and a foul shot each by Alec Malecki and Matt Gaiman.

The Tomahawks opened the fourth quarter with a 37-31 lead. E.O Smith cut the deficit to 38-37 with five minutes to play. But the Panthers failed to score in the next three minutes. By then, Glastonbury was up 43-37. The Tomahawks then successfully played keep-away the rest of the way. Donato made 4 of 6 foul shots in the final 1:19.

“We missed so many layups in the first half,” said Glastonbury coach Jim Vaughan. “I knew if we would keep plugging away that we’d be OK. We were getting good shots. If we weren’t going to be hitting them, then we weren’t going to win.”

Pires noticed the effectiveness of Glastonbury’s defense. “We were pretty aggressive but they really hounded us. Their advantage was in their aggressiveness. They were all over us in the second half. They put a lot of pressure on our point guard. They denied him the ball.”

Lin, the Panthers point guard, was effective at distributing the ball in the first half. He was less successful in the second half, and that’s when the Panthers’ offense began to sputter.

Lin is E.O. Smith’s leading foul shooter, at 84 percent, Pires said. He did not go to the foul line against Glastonbury, which is the first time all year he failed to do so. The Panthers were limited to eight foul shots, in which they made all eight. The Tomahawks were 17 of  27 from the free-throw line.

“We wanted to make it hard on them,” Vaughan said. “We wanted to challenge all of their shots.”

Vaughan made no tactical adjustments at halftime, failing to tweak his offense or defense. He did, however, change the starting lineup, adding Malcolm Crosson and Jordan Butler who ordinarily start but didn’t in the first quarter.