New London — The bulk of the points late Thursday night came from New London star Nalyce Dudley, who scored 13 in the fourth quarter, eight on free throws — “She’s a senior. Who else is going to take control of the game?” her coach, Tammy Millsaps said.

The source of New London’s energy, however, with the Whalers down one in the third quarter, came as somewhat of a surprise.

Freshman Joy Schneider, who usually comes off the bench, started in place of the injured Ky-Ani Allgood and played the entire 32 minutes in New London’s 46-35 victory over Bacon Academy in a game contested for first place in the Eastern Connecticut Conference Division II race.

New London remained unbeaten in the division, going to 10-5 overall, 4-0 in the ECC, while Bacon dropped its third straight game to fall to 14-3 overall, 4-2 in Division II. The teams play a rematch next week.

“We just needed that burst from her,” Dudley said of Schneider. “She’s a strong player. She’s a freshman. She’s just a good player. She has a lot of heart. ... That brought up a lot of our energy.”

Schneider had eight points and five rebounds, four straight points in the third quarter. Clinging to a four-point lead over Bacon, Schneider hit a shot from the right corner, then snagged a steal and took it in for a layup with 56 seconds left in the quarter. That prompted a Bacon timeout with the Bobcats now trailing 29-21.

“It’s a huge confidence booster because Joy’s probably the kid I’m hardest on in practice,” Millsaps said. “At times, like a lot of kids, coming into a varsity program is demanding. They want to take breaks. I’m just not letting you do that.

“Joy normally doesn’t start. These are the moments that as a coach, kids surprise you. These are the moments that you need.”

Bacon drew with 29-26 on a halfcourt buzzer-beater by Alanna Baehr, then tied things on a 3-pointer by Katelyn Novak to start the fourth quarter and took the lead on a pair of free throws by Marissa Nudd.

That’s when Dudley, who finished with 20 points, 13 rebounds and four steals, took over for New London.

Down 31-29, she tied the game with a spin move, followed by a 3-pointer assisted by Italia Salls to put the Whalers back in the lead, a sequence which launched a 15-0 New London run.

Dudley connected on two free throws, Schneider scored off a Bacon turnover and Dudley made four straight trips to the foul line, pushing the margin to 44-31.

Serenity Lancaster added nine points, eight rebounds and four blocked shots for New London, which didn’t use a substitute in the game, and Nyarah Dudley had eight rebounds.

Nudd had 14 points for Bacon and Emily Ferrigno had eight.

Dudley called it “one of those days” for New London, which didn’t score until 4 minutes, 15 seconds into the game, trailing 2-0 to that point prior to Schneider scoring on the front end of the Whalers’ fast break.

New London led 8-4 after one quarter and 16-10 at halftime. Bacon took a 19-18 lead in the third quarter on six straight points by Nudd.

“I knew coming toward the fourth quarter, I have to take over this game; I don’t want to lose,” Dudley said. “Especially for us, we had such low energy today. It really affected us but I just knew in the back of my head, I just have to take this game over.”

Millsaps said the Whalers didn’t have much in the way of a productive practice Wednesday.

“We talked about that in the pregame. There are times in the season, a long season, especially with the numbers that we have, they just want to come and go through the motions and then ‘I’ll figure it out on game day.’ I get it, but I’m not going to settle for it,” Millsaps said.

“It’s one of those games, we’ll take the win and keep moving. We have a young team. (Dudley) has to bring it up, she’s got to score, she’s got to play defense on their best player. But she’s handling it well.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com