New London — South Kingstown has a pair of players that are particularly good on defense, sisters Hayden Hill, a senior, and Jami Hill, a sophomore. Coach Henry Herbermann thinks they have ESP sometimes.

"Even in a zone, they have an unspoken communication," Herbermann said. "One pushes the girl with the ball one way and the other is waiting for her. They have long arms. They're good at man-to-man defense or zone."

It was a zone that Herbermann called upon in the first quarter Wednesday night, with his team trailing 11-2 to New London, ranked second in the GameTimeCT Top 10 and searching to avenge last year's loss to South Kingstown at the buzzer.

South Kingstown stopped the Whalers. Cold.

The unbeaten Rebels topped New London 74-45, outscoring the Whalers 28-7 for the remainder of the half, a resounding 19-2 in the second quarter.

New London's Desiree Johnson scored the only points of the second quarter on the front end of a fast break to give the Whalers an 18-13 lead. South Kingstown then unleashed 25 straight points, launched by a 3-pointer from Hayden Hill to pull the Rebels within 18-16.

It was 30-18 South Kingstown by halftime and 59-30 after three quarters, with South Kingstown's offense in fast motion, combined with New London's foul trouble, as starting forward Joniyah Bland-Fitzpatrick went to the bench with her fourth foul just 11 seconds into the third quarter.

Faith Hutchins had 12 points for South Kingstown (10-0), leading five players in double figures.

Jayden Burns had 14 points and six assists for New London (9-2) and Wendy Gethers had 11 points, 5 rebounds and four steals.

"We were a little startled," Herbermann said of New London's fast start, with the Whalers continuously fast breaking, drawing fouls and getting a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Olivia Yard to lead 16-11 after a quarter. "We changed the defense and that was absolutely the correct call. We settled down.

"We have a lot of respect for (New London). I really didn't know what to expect. At the same time, there was less pressure on us. We wanted to win, but there was no pressure because it wasn't a league game."

New London coach David Kohn didn't have as much problem with the Whalers' offense against the zone. He thought they fought through it and learned a valuable lesson.

"The big issue was defensively, we couldn't get a stop," Kohn said. "They were shooting 60-70%. We had a little hiccup there. I'm glad we came back and executed, but we couldn't get a stop. ... The zone offense, we just weren't executing. Then around the third quarter, we figured out we just have to run our usual stuff.

"It's important to see what happens when we run into a team of this level and we get down."

New London next plays Tuesday at Eastern Connecticut Conference Division I rival Norwich Free Academy, a rematch of New London's 45-39 win on Jan. 4.

NFA, coming off a 58-52 victory over No. 10 Glastonbury on Tuesday, faces East Lyme on Thurday before facing off against New London.

v.fulkerson@theday.com