The Conant girls’ basketball team is far better than their record would indicate, but they still only have one win on the season after losing three in a row last week.
The Orioles, finally back at home after five games on the road, brought positive energy to Wednesday’s Hoops For Hope game against Monadnock, and despite the high-level opponent, Conant was well-positioned to win the game.
“Playing a home game is nice,” Conant head coach Devon Spirka said. “We’ve been away a lot lately. We have a whole ton of home games to end the season. The energy of your own crowd helps. But practice-wise, we honestly just slowed down and worked on IQ stuff. Not even skill fundamentals, but just knowing the game more.”
The Orioles displayed good decision-making against the visiting Huskies, who at 10-3 are a top team in Division III known for pesky defense and turning their opponents over. Conant did not seem rattled by Monadnock’s press and trap and played some staunch defense of their own. After the Huskies took an immediate seven-point lead in the first quarter, Spirka switched from man to 1-3-1 zone and the Orioles rallied, holding the Huskies to just a single point in the second quarter and taking an 18-15 lead into the break. With consistent co-captain Ella Derosier running the show, senior co-captain Violet Bennett running the floor and co-captain Myla Jones (team-high nine points) getting buckets, Conant kept it up in the third, and was bolstered by the emergence of Emma O’Malley, who came out and hit two big buckets after the half.
“For Emma to come in and be a spark off the bench,” Spirka said, “that’s what we’ve been waiting for, that sixth player to come in or seventh player to come in, because at that point your team needs the energy, and she provided that a hundred percent.”Conant was up 34-31 entering the fourth quarter, and that was when the energy shifted Monadnock’s way. Led by captain Marlee Carroll-Clough, who scored 19 of her game-high 26 points in the second half, the Huskies roared back, and once they scored to take a 35-34 lead with 3:34 remaining, coach Eric Fazio slowed his girls all the way down, and that was the final field goal of the game for either team. Monadnock held on and escaped with a 42-34 win, the latest close tough loss for the Orioles, who can’t quite seem to finish the job in these nailbiters.
“We’ve had a lot of those games where we walk out and we’re like ‘you shouldn’t hang your heads about it,'” Spirka said. “We know it’s a loss. We kind of feel like a broken record at this point. I’m sure the girls feel that way too, but it’s true. It’s true. They’re hanging with teams. They hung with Hopkinton, they hung with Kearsarge, they hung with [Monadnock]. So it’s just trying to put the whipped cream and the cherry on top. We’re trying to get to that point, and I just think we need a little more time for that. Can’t rush time.”
Time is running out on this particular season, though. The Orioles took a 50-point loss to undefeated Fall Mountain Friday night and are now 1-12 with five games remaining. Their next and best chance at a W comes Wednesday at home against Campbell (4-9); the Orioles lost to the Cougars on the road by four earlier this season.
