By Kim J. Harmon
By Kim J. Harmon
What rotten luck.
The good news is for once (for once!) there is no snowstorm to play havoc with the schedule and the Newtown Middle School basketball teams finally (finally!) get to play their first game in 12 days, but the bad news is the opponent is Memorial Middle School of Middlebury.
The Memorial boys are undefeated and the Memorial girls have lost just once.
Boy, what rotten luck.
Oh, early deficits can be killers. The Lions fell into a 7-0 hole to open the first quarter on Tuesday afternoon, never quite recovered (although they did come within one point on two occasions in the first half) and fell 50-41.
The Lions went on an 8-2 run in the first period (Bob Lapple and Dylan Clark popped in two baskets apiece) to trim the Memorial lead to one, 9-8, and though the visitors pushed their lead back up to six early in the second quarter, the Lions rallied back again with five consecutive points (a two-pointer by Lapple and a three-pointer by Clark) to trim the lead back to one, 16-15.
That was as close as the game would get.
Memorial was soon on top by six and began stretching the lead even further in the third quarter â despite the efforts of Lapple (14 points), Clark (11 points), Erik Dreher (four points) and Matt Mascolo (five points). Jason Smith and Mike Maher also canned baskets and Danny Smith drained a three-pointer with five seconds left in the game to round out the scoring.
The Lions played well, but Memorial was hot from the outside, popping in four three-pointers in the game.
The Lions were at Jockey Hollow on Thursday and will travel to Bethel on Tuesday, February 24.
A dominating performance from their center wasnât enough to save the Lady Lions.
Morgan Knees had a superb floor game, scoring 16 points and ripping down 10 rebounds but the Lady Lions suffered a hard-fought 51-34 loss. The locals were down 30-14 at the half and then managed to stay with Memorial the rest of the way.
Katie Condon canned seven points while Hannah Tenenbaum (3), Joanna Barry (2), Jen Brill (2), and Colleen Murphy (2) all contributed to the offense. Barry also grabbed nine rebounds while Condon grabbed seven and Stacy Broughton, Caitlin OâHandley and Katie Schmidt pulled down five apiece.
As a team, the Lady Lions had 52 rebounds.
The Lady Lions hosted Jockey Hollow on Thursday and will host Bethel on Tuesday, February 24.