Colchester — Bacon Academy was down a starter in Friday night’s game against Waterford.

Not that anyone outside of Bacon Academy would've noticed the difference.

Junior Marissa Nudd scored 27 points as Bacon played one of its best games of the season to rout the Lancers, 69-48, in an Eastern Connecticut Conference Division II girls' basketball game at Dave Shea Gymnasium.

The Bobcats (10-1, 5-0) were without senior guard Ashley Lizotte due to illness.

“It was a good offensive night,” Bacon head coach John Shea said. “(Lizotte is) an important player. (It was a) next-man-up type of thing and it worked out alright.”

And how.

Bacon shot 50 percent from the floor (31-of-62) from the floor. That including shooting a scorching 11-of-17 during its 25-point second quarter.

It was the second-most points the Bobcats scored in a game this season. They scored their season high, oddly enough, against Waterford on Dec. 16 (73-58).

“We pushed the ball,” Nudd said. “We hustled. We knew what we needed to do. We had energy and I think we all picked it up. We were down (a starter) but we just all knew what had to be done.

“We played well as a team, definitely.”

Senior center Emma Mancuso had a career-high 16 points and 13 rebounds for Bacon.

“Mancuso was great under the boards,” Nudd said.

Senior guard Valerie Luizzi added nine points, nine assists, six rebounds and two steals for the Bobcats and sophomore guard Cara Shea had 11 points, seven rebounds and four assists.

Sophomore Emily Ferrigno started in place of Lizotte.

“Emily did a really good job filing in,” John Shea said.

The Lancers struggled to make any shot through the first three quarters. They had an atypically poor night offensively and shot 33.3 percent (19-of-57).

“I think we put up some really, really good shots and we unfortunately just couldn’t finish.” Waterford head coach Kaitlyn Sullivan said.

Senior forward Milena Walker had 20 points and eight rebounds for Waterford (7-4, 2-2) and junior forward Julia Knowles scored 11.

Luizzi and Nudd both made a 3-pointer during a 14-0 run that gave Bacon a 31-10 lead with four minutes, 57 seconds left in the second quarter.

The Bobcats led 42-18 at halftime.

Nudd made another three to open the fourth quarter to give Bacon its largest lead, 61-29.

“That was definitely a good offensive night for us,” Nudd said. “We all contributed. We hit threes when we needed to. We had our bigs hit shots down low. We had very good passes.

“Everything just worked out for us. It was a very good night for us.”

n.griffen@theday.com