Tianna Rogers led Danbury with 12 points #ctgb pic.twitter.com/JP4j713nVU
— Scott Ericson (@EricsonSports) January 4, 2020
DARIEN — It took a little while for the Danbury girls basketball team to start running its offense though its post players, but once it did, everything started clicking for the Hatters.
Danbury pulled away down the stretch, led by 12 points from center Tianna Rogers, beating Darien 45-35 Friday night.
“Once Darien had to move their zone up when they got desperate, at the end it opened more things up for us,” Danbury coach Jackie DiNardo said. “We were able to git the inside and get the inside players to drive baseline. Knowing we have had slow starts, we were a little nervous early. Trying to get on the right track. We were not in sync to start the game.”
The strength of the Hatters is inside but the team settled for jump shots early on.
Flores with the hoop for Danbury. 17-17 against Darien in third #ctgb pic.twitter.com/7EdoKCd6Zg
— Scott Ericson (@EricsonSports) January 4, 2020
Rogers had four points in the first half, while fellow post player Tanisha Cunningham had two.
In the second half, Danbury was able to free up Rogers inside, which in turn also opened things up for guards Chloe Perreault (nine points) and Viviana Flores (10 points).
The Danbury defense also tightened up, holding the Blue Wave to eight points in the fourth quarter, extending the lead from two points to 10 by the midpoint of the quarter.
Darien did not help its cause, turning the ball over nearly 20 times in the game.
Darien leads over Danbury after one 10-7 #ctgb pic.twitter.com/xt5FfdlB0N
— Scott Ericson (@EricsonSports) January 4, 2020
“(Danbury) did a great job of penetrating our zone and dumping it off to their big,” Darien coach Melba Chambers said. “We haven’t played that badly on defense in six games. Letting their guards penetrate and our back line letting them dump it off behind us. We have to play smarter and when a team turns up their intensity, we have to match it. On the offensive end, we have 20 turnovers, that’s 20 shots we don’t get to take. That killed us offensively.”
Shea Dolce scored a game-high 16 points, including three 3-pointers.
PLAYER OF THE GAME
Tianna Rogers, Danbury. The 6-foot junior was a force inside, scoring six of her team-high 12 in the fourth quarter.
QUOTABLE
“We were able to see each other a lot better and that helps, a lot,” Rogers said. “Our post has a reputation of getting the job done and that’s when we can pop it out and our guards can hit their 3s and that helps the team.”
