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| Holy Cross’ Aiyana Ward (32) runs the floor as Idalis Miranda (13) brings the ball up. The WCA player is Taylor Dunn (10). |
It wasn’t the best effort for the Holy Cross girls basketball team in the first game of Friday night’s doubleheader at Waterbury Career Academy.
The Crusaders did pick up another win, however, knocking off the Spartans 51-36 behind a balanced offensive attack. Meah Austin led Holy Cross, now 15-1, with 11 points. Idalis Miranda had nine points while Aiyana Ward and Natalie Hodak each scored seven points.
Holy Cross was coming off of a big 64-34 win over Kennedy on Wednesday, and there was no school at HC because of professional development. Still, head coach Frank Lombardo wasn’t satisfied.
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| Miranda fires up a jumper early in the fourth quarter. |
“It’s the way the year’s been going,” Lombardo said. “We have a lot of players that are not varsity experienced.”
Lombardo thought his team would be better at this point, but there are inconsistencies that aren’t helping. One area Friday night was defense.
“I thought we did a horrible job on the defensive end, and we had tons of fouls,” Lombardo said.
Lombardo gave credit to WCA.
“They came, they played hard,” Lombardo said.
WCA head coach Stephen Barbieri was happy with his defense.
“Our defense is our key,” Barbieri said. “We played hard defensively tonight. We’re going to struggle to score at times, like what happened tonight.”
The Spartans fell behind by 19 points in the third quarter, but was able to close to within nine points — 36-27 — near the end of the quarter. WCA never got closer than that the rest of the way as Holy Cross put the game away.
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| WCA’s Alyssah Chouinard puts up a foul shot in the second quarter. |
Armani Weaver led the Spartans with 11 points, including two 3-pointers. Weaver did struggle from the floor, as did her teammates. Alyssah Chouinard had nine points while Kendra McPherson tallied eight. Junior captain Shyra Fisher added five points and was disruptive at the defensive end, scoring both of her field goals on fast breaks following steals.
“She plays extremely hard,” Barbieri said. “They all play hard.”
If you think WCA is satisfied with its season to this point, you’re wrong.
“We haven’t achieved anything yet,” Barbieri said.
The Spartans want a state tournament berth, but they need to win three more games. WCA, now 5-11, has two games against Wilby and one each against Crosby and Kennedy to close the season.
Holy Cross finishes its regular season with two games against Crosby, plus one apiece against Sacred Heart and Wilby.
