Waterford — December was the cruelest of months for the Ledyard girls’ basketball team. Five games. Five losses.

The Colonels needed to get their stuff together ... and fast.

Ledyard has certainly figured things out. The Colonels hustled their way past a very green Waterford 50-46 on Tuesday night in an Eastern Connecticut Conference Division II game for their 11th win in their last 14 games.

“It was a camaraderie issue that we had going on,” Ledyard head coach Mike Morgan said. “It wasn’t that we were missing players. We just hadn’t found who we were yet without our seniors from the year before.

“With them gone and the new identity of the team, we had to figure out who was going to step into what role and I just felt like that first five games really were kind of a test there to see who was going to be what.”

The new year has been much, much better for Ledyard. It has wins over Fitch (57-53, Jan. 24) and Bacon Academy (51-48, Jan. 28), the latter which started 14-0 before the Colonels avenged an earlier season loss.

“We just got things figured out,” Morgan said. “We just came together and we really focused on just playing defense. That was our biggest thing.

“New London scored (71) on us (on Dec. 15) and then we gave up (89) to Enfield (on Dec. 12). So, when we came back (in January) after that (Valley Regional Holiday Tournament) we just recommitted to playing defense.”

Ledyard had 18 steals against Waterford led by senior Monet Augmon (15 points, five assists), sophomore Adrianna Hardison (11 points, five steals) and junior Cassie Rice (seven points, five steals). Senior Kieara Kirvan added 12 points and junior Helena Robinson had eight rebounds.

The Lancers (5-11, 0-6) are still trying to find their way with a very, very young roster. Julia Knowles (16 points, 13 rebounds) is the only senior in the program and six of their nine players available Tuesday night were freshman.

“It’s been tough,” Waterford head coach Kaitlyn Sullivan. “This is just unfortunately the nature of our program. We have 12 girls but I have 12 girls that come every day (and) give me their all. They work so hard.

“Some of them have never played more than rec basketball. … yet they’re all here giving their all every single night doing the best that they can and I can’t ask for more.”

Freshman Lucy Walker had 10 points and four rebounds for the Lancers.

Waterford gave the Colonels trouble with the Ledyard playing for the second straight day after losing to Fitch, 60-52, on Monday.

Kirvan and Augmon scored on back-to-back layups to put Ledyard ahead for good, 43-39, with 4 minutes, 24 seconds left in the game.

“We had a very emotional game (Monday),” Morgan said. “That was a very, very tough game. And then coming back, today was almost like a hangover that we had from yesterday. It took us pretty much (until) the fourth quarter to actually wake up.”

n.griffen@theday.com