Lady Trojans win 5th straight game

Three weeks ago, the Weston girls basketball team simply wanted to qualify for the Class M state tournament. Now the Lady Trojans' goals keep getting more ambitious with every victory they accumulate. Last Friday, Weston extended its win streak to five games with a 47-37 road victory against Notre Dame-Fairfield.

"I think it's really good timing going into the postseason," said junior Christina Welsh of her team's current upswing. "We have everyone healthy and playing well together."

Welsh scored a team-high 17 points, mostly with a collection of floating lay-ups and close-range jumpers. She was 6-for-8 from the field while also hauling in eight rebounds and registering a steal. Senior captain Brittany Swanson also had a night full of healthy statistics with 16 points, 13 rebounds and two steals.

Weston (12-4, 8-3 in the South West Conference) was able to flex its defensive muscles--especially with its press--in the first half to leave the home team scoreless in the first quarter. Notre Dame (5-11, 2-9) did not help its cause by missing a majority of its 10 shots a few feet away from the basket. Weston sophomore forward Ellie Martin was able to clean up a fair amount of the Lady Lancers' misses by grabbing four of her 10 rebounds in the first quarter alone. She wound up with three points as well.

Still by only scoring seven points in the first quarter and 13 in the second, the Lady Trojans left the door open for Notre Dame to entertain the notion of a rally in the fourth quarter.

"Defensively I thought our effort was pretty good. Notre Dame's a good ball club. They can score points. They were cold in the first half," Weston coach Pat Cole said. "I thought offensively we had some things we had to work out and at the end of the day I think we did what we needed to do to get out of here with a win."

Notre Dame coach Eric DeMarco, whose team lost its sixth consecutive game, remarked that if it wasn't for his team's own defense that it could be down far more than the actual 13-point halftime deficit.

"If our defense wasn't reasonable, that could have easily been 30 or 40 points because Weston has been scoring at a great rate," he said.

The Lady Lancers were lead by the efforts of junior Nicole Negron, who scored her team's first points of the game with 4:27 to go before halftime with a layup bank shot. She ended up with a team-high 17 points and nine rebounds while playing more of post player role to make up for the absence of Destiny George, who was experiencing flu-like symptoms before the game. Negron found offensive support in the second half from junior Annie Sutilla, who had 14 points, including four 3-pointers.

Sutilla's treys generated some spark from Notre Dame's crowd, but Pat Cole made sure his team kept its focus to not allow the margin on the scoreboard to dip into the single digits.

"He really wanted us to keep up the intensity, keep pressuring their ball handlers and not let them take the game away from us," Christina Welsh said.

Weston's effort was aided by juniors Hannah Hutchins (six points, six rebounds, three steals) and Dakota Sloop (six rebounds, three points, two steals). Senior captain Jessica Welsh and freshman Taylor Swanson both recorded a point to round out the team's scoring.

Weston, who played host to Lauralton Hall on Tuesday after press time, will travel to New Milford Friday for a 7 p.m. game.