Lady Wrecker cagers hold on

Following a sloppy 40-37 victory at Darien on Jan. 26, the Staples girls basketball team was looking for a crisp and clean win last Friday afternoon at Norwalk. What it got was another small-margin victory, 32-27.

Neither team had an easy team finding the basket, shooting a combined 25.6 percent (21-for-82) from the field. Still, the Lady Wreckers made just a few more critical shots than Norwalk to improve their record to 11-4, 10-3 in the FCIAC.

How bad was it for Staples? Senior captain guard Suvi Puripattarapan was held to a team-high nine points, marking the first time in recent memory that the team's leading scorer finished in single digits.

"It's just a case of just playing well enough," Staples Coach Ed Huydic said of his team's performance.

"Our shots aren't falling," Puripattarapan said. "Not just for me, but for everybody else, and it makes it so much harder when you play defense so hard and then you can't make your shots."

That defense helped frustrate Norwalk (5-9, 5-7) into 23 turnovers, including 12 in the second quarter. The home team's inability to both hold onto the ball or put it in the basket resulted in just six points in the first half to account for its effort -- three in each quarter.

Still by only having 17 points at the half, Staples kept its opponent on life support.

"The determining factor in a game this low scoring is defense and we certainly had that--in the first half in particular," Huydic said. "Interestingly, in spite of the fact that we dominated the first 16 minutes our lead was no where what it could have been had we found some hot shooters because we certainly had twice as many shots as they did and certainly had some real good opportunities to cash in."

After drastically reducing its number of turnovers in the second half, Norwalk was able to make things interesting by going on an 11-0 run early in the fourth quarter, turning a 26-12 Staples edge into a 26-23 nail-biter midway through the quarter. Staples, though, was able to settle down its play --and the growing cheers of the home fans -- by dribbling down precious minutes and relying on four made free throws out of eight opportunities from Puripattarapan. A basket by junior Nicole Brill with 1:48 to play helped quell the thoughts of a Norwalk upset as well.

"If we would have played the first quarter like we played the fourth quarter, the game could have been a lot of different," Norwalk Coach Rick Fuller said.

Huydic said his team is still trying to find its offensive identity while sitting in the wake of losing starting center Jess Coelho to an ACL injury two weeks ago. He was enthusiastic about the play of senior captain forward Maddy Krakowiak, who is still trying to find the same groove she had before going through the pangs of an MCL injury. She had six rebounds, three assists and two steals but only managed to register four points.

"She's given us a lot of heart on defense and rebounds," Hudyic said of Krakowiak. "We need to get her into the offensive flow more."

Staples' biggest bright spot might have come in the form of the contributions of sophomore guard Remy Nolan, who came off the bench and scored seven points.

Senior Chelsea Salamone and Brill had five points each. The team's scoring was rounded out by two points from junior Jaclyn Katz.

As has usually been the case, the Lady Wreckers found themselves pitted against a much taller and larger frontcourt. The Lady Bears were anchored by the play of 5-10 forward Rotisha Lewis and her game-high 10 points and 11 rebounds. Lewis had five of her team's six points going into halftime.

Staples looked to find its shooting touch at home against Stamford yesterday after press time. The Lady Wreckers host Wilton on Friday at 7 p.m.