YellowJackets Girls Basketball Stung by Indians

The North Haven Indians took a 53-40 victory over the East Haven YellowJackets on Saturday afternoon, with East Haven head coach Anthony Russell feeling as though his team did not put in a lot of effort.

“I just honestly didn’t think the effort was there that we should have had,” Russell said. “I thought we played okay in spots, but not enough to win a game.”

North Haven head coach Tom Cappello, on the other hand, was pleased with his team’s performance, though he said the girls still have spots where improvement is needed.

“We played great, then we made it hard for ourselves,” Cappello said. “When we stayed in system, [it was] our best execution of the year.”

Cappello added that his girls played particularly well against man-to-man defense in the game, over which the Indians scored first and held the lead for the rest of the game until the final buzzer.

Olivia DiCapua and Analee Collins led the Indians’ scoring with 15 points each. Cappello noted Collins’ performance as one of the stand-outs.

“Analee was a horse,” he said. “We went to her in crunch time and she delivered almost every time, so I was very proud of her.”

Cappello was also happy with Riley Dineen, who scored 12 points in the game.

“Riley Dineen really stepped up,” he said. “When Olivia got in trouble, she took point, and she’s not done that before, but she really handled herself at the point, hit the right people – I was really proud there.”

Sam Doebrick, , again led the charge with 11 points. Behind her were Jenna Gaudioso and Julia Waters with eight points each.

Russell said his team was also having some difficulty managing the ball around the perimeter and not driving to the basket. He said the idea was to move the ball around the perimeter to move the zone defense around to open up seams.

“Penetrating also opens up people on the perimeter, which we weren’t doing,” he said. “We were just settling for one pass, one shot, and I think our percentage from the three-point range had to be in the single digits, so when you’re shooting that, it’s kind of difficult to win the game.”

Russell said the only positive note he saw in the game was the fact that in the final minutes, the YellowJackets were only a few points behind.

“Unfortunately when you’re playing the way that we were playing, you’re not just going to all of a sudden turn it on in the last two minutes,” he said.

The YellowJackets, now 1-14, couldn’t take the lead at any point, but made it close at times. Cappello said with a nine point lead, he was trying to slow the game pace down with the spread offense, but his team rushed play at times.

“You want to take as many ticks off the clock as you possibly can,” Cappello said. “We took some unfortunate shots, and we have to be a little wiser in those situations.”

Russell said with his team closing the gap at points, he told them defensive stops were key as well as good offensive possessions.

“We had to get stops on the defensive end,” he said. “It seemed any time they ran anything, almost at will, whatever they ran, they got an open look and most of the time they converted.”

The Indians boosted their record to 5-9, and Cappello said this game was a needed pick-up for his team.

“We lost a couple in a row,” he said. “So it really does lift our spirits quite a bit, and the kids needed this and they saw that they can play basketball and win basketball, so psychologically it’s a big win for us.”