New London is the one in final state poll
The New London girls’ basketball lived the cliché, "one game at time" this season. Their next opponent was written on the board in their locker room. Thinking about any team beyond that was forbidden.
The season over and a CIAC Class LL championship in hand, Whalers’ head coach Holly Misto finally took a moment to reflect on who the team both played and beat.
Misto was stunned.
“I looked at the schedule and the road to the final and thought, ‘wow’, Misto said. “It wasn’t easy where we got to, and these kids accomplished so much.”
New London made itself an easy choice as the state's number one team in the final GameTimeCT/New Haven Register Top 10 poll, which was announced Tuesday. It was also an unanimous choice among the 15 coaches and media voters.
The Whalers (26-2) beat five other teams that were ranked in the Top 10:
• No. 2 and Class L champion Hand (45-42, Dec. 27).
• No. 3 Trumbull, the former No. 1, in Saturday’s LL final (42-36).
• No. 8 Enfield (57-35), the Central Connecticut Conference champion, in a March 13 LL semifinal.
• No. 9 Norwich Free Academy (53-37, Dec. 22, and 53-39, Feb. 22, ECC Division I title game).
• No. 10 Bacon Academy (39-34, Jan. 3), the Class M runnerup.
The Whalers edged defending LL champion Stamford (58-56), which was ranked eighth prior to states (and finished 11th), in the LL quarterfinals on March 19. They also had wins over Nov. 15 and Class M semifinalist Waterford (60-34, Jan. 21, and 51-39, Feb. 18), and No. 19 Notre Dame of Fairfield (61-39, Dec. 29).
“I tried to schedule as many tough games as I could,” Misto said. “We went to Notre Dame of Fairfield at Christmastime to play in the Notre Dame Appalachian Classic. There was (Class S runner-up) Thomaston, Notre Dame, Hand, and us. Three out of those four were in the finals. It’s a great tournament that we love to go to. It’s early in the season and pushes us and got us ready for games like NFA.
“I knew (the players) were determined. We started out preseason conditioning early in the summer and they were all there. … They wanted to get rid of the bad taste from last year (a 51-48 loss to Capital Prep in the Class L final).”
New London hadn't won a state title prior to 2014 when it won Class M. Now it has two titles in four seasons and it's first number one ranking.
“I have a great coaching staff,” Misto said. “I brought in two assistants that know the game and it really, really helped (Arianna Dolock and Missy Parker). … If we didn’t have the staff that we have, the administration that are super into everything that we do, our fans, we wouldn’t be as good as we were. We couldn’t have done it without them.”
Comment threads are monitored for 48 hours after publication and then closed.
