GLASTONBURY – East Catholic’s girls basketball team is heading to the CCC tournament finals for the first time.
Led by a collective scoring effort, the No. 4 Eagles raced past No. 8 Bloomfield 73-57 on Tuesday night.
“We saw this, to be honest,” East Catholic coach Jeremiah Brown said. “We have been saying that we’re the best team in the state for a long time, Now we have to prove, but it’s confidence in the kids.
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“They put in the work, they put in the effort and it’s all on them. That’s what I told them before the game started, this is them. Coach and I are here to make sure they get enough water.”
The Eagles had four different scorers reach double digits.
East Catholic’s Cami Pasqualoni was one of four Eagles to score in double digits in their win over Bloomfield in the CCC semifinals #ctgb pic.twitter.com/7nTikI0lhB
— Pete Paguaga (@PetePaguaga) February 25, 2020
“We had people step up that needed to step up,” said East Catholic senior Cami Pasqualoni, who scored 16 points. “Maybe it’s not always the same person stepping up, but we work as a team.”
Bloomfield led by Alexsia Rose and her game-high 30 points made it close in the third quarter, but the Eagles put their foot on the gas and ran away with the game.
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“We had people step up that needed to step up, maybe it’s not always the same person stepping up, but we work as a team everyone does something, Pasqualoni said. “Once they started hitting them, we started going.”
East Catholic will play defending champion E.O. Smith Thursday night at Glastonbury.
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EAST CATHOLIC 73, BLOOMFIELD 57
EAST CATHOLIC
Edisha Galan 5 5 16, Lilly Ferguson 4 5 13, Emily Jeamel 6 2 18, Lauren Trymbulak 3 2 8, Cami Pasqualoni 5 3 16, Kayliana Salazar 0 0 0, Nyasia Dogans 1 0 2, Alexis Jablonecki 0 0 0. 24 17 73
BLOOMFIELD
Alexsia Rose 10 8 30, Aliyah Robinson 3 2 9, Marcelle James 1 0 2, Gabriella Douglas 8 0 16, Kennedy Carter 0 0 0. Totals: 22 10 67.
EAST CATHOLIC 21 14 21 19 – 73
BLOOMFIELD 12 13 16 16 – 57
3-pointers: E – Jeamel 4, Pasqaloni 3,Galan. B – Rose 2.
Defense leads E.O. Smith past Conard, back to title game
GLASTONBURY – E.O. Smith’s girls basketball team was, perhaps, an unlikely candidate to defend its CCC title on Thursday night.
But the No. 14-seeded Panthers will do just that on Thursday. They were strong on the defensive side of the ball and took advantages of turnovers to top No. 10 Conard, 57-28, in the CCC semifinals on Tuesday night.
“We really have worked hard since December to create from our defense, to run with an attitude, if we have the transition take it, if not then to smartly move the ball,” E.O. Smith coach Mary Roickle said.
“These ladies play for each other. We say we play for E.O., we play for each other and they just demonstrated that in every way possible. It was just a very good game today for this time.”
EO Smith’s Courtney Doherty on her teams big second quarter that led to their dominant win in the CCC semifinals #ctgb pic.twitter.com/JIVncfOMnQ
— Pete Paguaga (@PetePaguaga) February 26, 2020
Thanks to a dominant first quarter, after which the Panthers led by 10, E.O Smith upped the pressure on defense and held Conard to just three points in the second quarter to take a commanding 29-10 lead at the break.
“I think we were just more relaxed, we weren’t as nervous after the first couple of minutes,” E.O. Smith senior Courtney Doherty said. “We found our groove and were able to hit those open shots.”
Doherty led the way with a game-high 18 points, while Taylor Golembieweski added 12.
E.O. Smith will go for back-to-back CCC titles against East Catholic, in a rematch of a Feb. 7 meeting that East Catholic won 55-53 in overtime.
“We have a run going, it’s a good time of the year to have a run going,” Roickle said.
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