Panthers Survive Scare from the Line

An untimely rash of the yips from the foul line – throughout the game and most critically in the fourth quarter – nearly cost a trip to the CIAC Class L girls basketball finals next weekend. But the Panthers can be grateful that one player was cool enough to make most of her free throws.

Morgan Olander’s composure from the free-throw line provided the difference as E.O. Smith, the No. 2 seed, held off No. 3 Torrington 52-49 in a semifinal game Friday night at Plainville High School, sending the Panthers to their first-ever girls basketball state tournament championship game.

The Panthers (22-2) will battle SCC champion Hillhouse-New Haven for the title at Mohegan Sun Arena on March 18 or 19 at a time to be determined. Hillhouse (24-2), the fourth seed, beat previously undefeated Bacon Academy-Colchester 58-34 in the other semifinal. The Panthers were eliminated in the semifinals last year, losing to Wethersfield.

Olander went 6-for-8 from the foul line, while her E.O. Smith teammates combined to shoot 1 of 9 in the fourth quarter and finished 11 of 24 (45.8 percent) for the game. The Panthers began the fourth quarter with a 43-36 lead and prevented the Red Raiders (23-3) from closing the gap until the final 2:30 when Sarah Royals – the game-high scorer with 20 points before fouling out­ with 1:52 left – cut through the defense for a layup that made it 46-41. From that point on, Torrington was forced to foul.

Olander, a junior post player who wound up with 12 points, hit a pair of foul shots with 30.7 seconds remaining to give E.O. Smith, which lost in the CCC quarterfinals, a 52-47 lead. Alyssa Otis, who scored 15 points, made a layup at the buzzer.

“Morgan is our best free-throw shooter,” said E.O. Smith coach Kirk Murad. “We figured we should get the ball to her and then they’d foul her. Thankfully she made her shots.” Michael Fritch, the Torrington coach, said: “Morgan did a great job with the foul shots at the end.”

Olander’s trick to maintain stability and concentration during those pressure situations sounds sensible and simple – but highly difficult to accomplish. “I try to take deep breaths and try to close out the noise and focus on the basket,” she said.

“I would assume they’d be fouling me. I told Maggie [Sundberg] I didn’t want to bring the ball up. Luckily, I held on to the ball.”

Sundberg, the Panthers’ point guard, was 1 of 6 from the foul line but scored a team-high 16 points despite missing two brief stretches while tending to a bloody nose. Sundberg’s biggest contribution, though, might have been swiping the ball away from Otis near the lane that led to a pivotal steal and defensive stop with 1:18 to go and E.O. Smith up by 47-43.

“Maggie Sundberg is an excellent player,” said Fritch. “Both teams have great players. Ours [Royals] fouled out, theirs did not. We tried to deny her but couldn’t.”

Sundberg and Royals were often matched-up against each other but not all the time. “She’s great,” Murad said. “We knew we had to hold her. Luckily for us, she had foul trouble down the stretch. I think Maggie made her work harder than she wanted to on defense.”

Royals, the Naugatuck Valley League’s leading scorer at over 22 points per game, scored eight points in the first half, which ended in a 32-24 advantage for the Panthers. She scored seven points in a span of 2:19 in the third quarter that turned a 34-26 lead for E.O. Smith into a one-point deficit at 35-34 with a little more than half of the quarter to play.

“When she fouled out, she told the team, ‘Let’s go, we can do this,’ ” Fritch said. “I just thought that we didn’t get our offense in any type of flow. And they dictated the tempo in the second half and that hurt us.”

Murphy Murad scored 15 points for E.O. Smith by making two three-point shots. Taylor Christiano scored 10 points for Torrington, the NVL tournament runners-up. The Red Raiders, who lost in the L second round last year, were 18 of 27 (66.7 percent) from the foul line.