Ridgefield Boys Basketball Trounces Harding

The Ridgefield boys basketball team pulled away in the second half Tuesday night to rout Harding 67-34 at home.

Seth Von Kuhn scored 18 points, Chris Esemplare 15 and Bryan Galvin 13 for the Tigers, who improved to 12-1 in the FCIAC and 14-1 overall. Galvin also did a solid job of running Ridgefield's offense.

"If Bryan Galvin isn’t handling the ball during the game, we lose that game," Tigers coach Carl Charles said. “He really came through, and we figured out how to spread the floor against them -- then things opened up.”

Listen to the Tigers' coaching staff, however, and the game wasn't nearly as easy as the score might suggest.

"If there ever was a tough 33-point win,  this was it,"  said assistant coach George Labbancz said.

The Presidents (8-5, 8-7) did give the Tigers some problems with their scrambling defense in which they constantly tried to double-team the Ridgefield guards.  That made it difficult for the Tigers to get into its normal offense.

“It has been tough, losing all those days to bad weather," Charles said. "We haven’t been able to work on a lot of new things, especially dealing with double- teams on our guards."

"In the end, the key was our defense," Charles said. "We held them to only two points in the final quarter and they have eight wins and are not a bad team.”

Von Kuhn scored Ridgefield’s first nine points, hitting three field goals and a 3-pointer to give Ridgefield a 9-2 lead en route to a 17-6 first-quarter advantage.

In the second period, the Tigers outscored the Presidents 17-11 to open a 34-17 cushion.

After the teams played even in the third quarter, Ridgefield finally figured out how to attack Harding in the fourth period and turned the contest into a rout.