NFA girls outlast Fitch 40-39

Norwich — Bill Scarlata has never been particularly still on the sideline. A Scarlata-coached girls' basketball game is always good for hand-wringing and plenty of animation.

Quite often that was in the Eastern Connecticut Conference tournament championship, though. Or the state finals.

Not very often has Scarlata coached the third quarter of a regular season ECC Large Division matchup holding on to the back of his head in quite this fashion.

"We shouldn't have made it that difficult," Scarlata said Friday night.

The NFA girls beat Fitch 40-39.

That was after the Wildcats trailed 12-4 after the first quarter. It was after they led by five, 40-35, with 1 minute, 7 seconds remaining on an offensive rebound converted by point guard Kayla Donovan.

The Wildcats then had to hold on as Fitch's Brittany Murphy scored with 26 seconds left to pull the team within three. With 6.9 seconds remaining, the Falcons got off a 3-point attempt by Haley Cooper, attempting to tie, but the ball got stuck between the rim and backboard.

Fitch got the possession arrow on the jump ball, missed a 3 by Murphy which hit the rim, and scored as the final buzzer sounded to pull within one.

Scarlata's problem during that instant was his defense, still trying to stop the Falcons from scoring at the risk of fouling Lexis Foster, who had the otherwise meaningless putback.

"Why? Why?" Scarlata said. "Those are the things I have to go over that I've never had to go over before.

"In practice yesterday we went over some things on how to get the ball inside the zone and it was like, 'Wow, this looks pretty good.' Then it looks nothing like that. They're good kids, though. They do listen. They do take criticism."

NFA is 7-4 overall, 3-1 in the ECC Large Division and improving every game; sometimes, such as against Fitch, they improve within the framework of one game. The Wildcats don't have a senior.

Sophomore Alyssa Velles finished with 15 points and six rebounds and Donovan, a junior, had 10 points and seven rebounds. Brittany Molkenthin had 10 rebounds.

Donovan, who plays with a brace on her right knee, tore her lateral collateral ligament during the summer. She didn't need surgery, but was still winded quickly when the season started and she was forced to take over at point guard when the Wildcats lost theirs days before the season.

Against Fitch, Donovan helped lead the charge for NFA, which took just about every shot from the perimeter in the first quarter, looking tentative to drive against Foster, the Falcons' center who seemed to be sending everything back.

"We started off a little slow," Donovan said. "We didn't do what we do in practice. We had to keep driving it in, kicking it out; we had to keep playing at that intensity."

"I don't know what happened," Velles said. "It took us a couple quarters to settle in. We were just nervous. Coach told us this was a big game for our conference."

Velles scored 12 points in the second half, hitting a 3-pointer to end an eight-point Fitch run that had given the Falcons (5-4, 1-3) a 25-21 lead. Velles then hit a deep two-point shot to give NFA the lead back at 26-25.

Cooper had 12 points and Foster had 11 for Fitch.

v.fulkerson@theday.com