Bacon girls beat EL to break deadlock atop ECC Large

Colchester - Earlier in the week, members of the Bacon Academy girls' basketball team taped a Facebook video urging their fellow students to attend Tuesday night's game against East Lyme.

They listed each of their names in the post, making sure all of their friends got the memo.

And so the more than 400 fans who showed up for the first-place showdown with the Vikings, chanting with each change of momentum and gyrating with each free throw, saw perhaps the best game of the season by their hometown team.

Behind a career-high 32 points from Taylor McLaughlin, Bacon defeated East Lyme 59-50, giving the Bobcats sole possession of first place in the Eastern Connecticut Conference Large Division.

It was the 39th straight regular-season victory for the Bobcats at Dave Shea Gymnasium. Bacon is 14-2 overall, 7-1 in the Large Division and two wins away from clinching its fourth straight divisional title. East Lyme is 11-4, 6-2 in the league, tied with Norwich Free Academy for second place.

"It helps a lot. The student section was fantastic," Bacon's Carlee Putnam said. "All day, we were telling them to get here. We made a Facebook video and we all hung posters on our lockers.

"It means a lot to us because (first place) was not expected of us. We wanted to prove we could do it and we did."

East Lyme beat Bacon the first time the teams played this season, 53-46 on Dec. 20. Bacon beat NFA, but NFA topped East Lyme the first time around, as well, resulting in a three-way tie. Bacon then defeated NFA last week, making it a two-way showdown Tuesday.

The teams played to a 20-20 stalemate in the first half, before McLaughlin, a 5-foot-10 junior forward who can also bring the ball down the floor and shoot from 3-point range, took over the game.

McLaughlin capped a three-point play with just 11 seconds gone in the third quarter, Putnam hit a 3-pointer and McLaughlin was fouled and hit both free throws to make it 28-20 in Bacon's favor in the opening 1:24 of the half.

The Bobcats led by as many as 11 (40-29) when Kelsey McCarthy got a layup off an East Lyme turnover and again (42-31) when McLaughlin drove the ball to the hoop from the left wing.

McLaughlin finished with 32 points, 11 rebounds, seven steals and three assists, shooting 10-for-19 from the floor, including one 3-pointer. Putnam and McCarthy added nine points each and McCarthy had nine rebounds.

"Well, Taylor's capable of playing like that," said Bacon coach Dave Shea, whose team lost Connecticut Gatorade Player of the Year Katie Mahoney, the coach's granddaughter, from last year's state semifinal run, as well as moving from the ECC Medium to the Large.

"(McLaughlin) got challenged at halftime. 'Be the player you can be.' And she picked it up in the second half; she was dynamite."

Shea reminded his team all week that last time the Bobcats played East Lyme, the Vikings used 18 offensive rebounds to score 14 points in the victory.

In this game, Bacon took an early 9-4 lead on a three-point play by McCarthy, who got the team's fourth straight offensive rebound and finally put it back in while being fouled.

East Lyme, meanwhile, although it can score quickly, could never quite catch Bacon, but the Vikings did come within four on a 3-pointer by Jenna Schumacher with about five minutes remaining, 49-45.

The Vikings had two players foul out, though, and, ahead six with a minute left, Bacon was able to slow the game down and force East Lyme to foul.

Schumacher and Michelle Lagrotteria scored 14 points each for East Lyme.

"I'm not taking anything away from them, but we tend to beat ourselves," East Lyme coach Bill Reagan said, although admitting the Vikings had no one to stop McLaughlin.

"... Once you're behind, you're just playing catch-up and it's just the other team's game."

v.fulkerson@theday.com