It’s CIAC state tournament time on the local high school sports scene. It’s win, or put the uniform away time and unfortunately the season came to an end for basketball and hockey last week. The lone winter sports team still left participating is the swim team.
Basketball — The basketball team saw its season come to an end with a 70-50 loss to second-ranked Notre Dame of Fairfield on Thursday, March 8 in a game played at the Pit Center at Sacred Heart University.
The Green Knights hung tough in an evenly-played first quarter that saw the score 11-11 when the buzzer sounded. Notre Dame pulled within 20-17 on a Trevon Setzer-Smith reverse layup late in the second stanza. However, the Lancers Tyler Bourne went on a personal 11-0 run and ND Fairfield raced out to a 31-20 halftime edge.
Needing a strong start to the second half, the exact opposite happened as the Lancers went on an 11-1 run as they built a 42-21 lead early in the second half to take control of the game. Connor Raines led all Green Knight scorers with 14 points.
Captain Michael Brooks and Alec Kinder ended their careers with 11-point outings. Notre Dame won its opening round game when Raines tallied 30 points in a convincing win over Northwest Catholic. ND ended its season with a 17-8 record.
Hockey — Wednesday’s first-round CIAC game with Darien showed the beauty and heartache of the one and done format all rolled into one game. After falling behind 2-0 in the first period, fourth-seeded Notre Dame rallied for two goals and had tremendous pressure late in the third period.
However, Connor McCarthy’s goal just three minutes into overtime ended Notre Dame’s season in heartbreaking fashion. Michael Ansaldo pulled ND within 2-1 on a rebound goal and Ian Hayden tallied the equalizer scoring shorthanded early in the third period.
Notre Dame outshot 13th-seed Darien 41-29 but Henri Pfeifle made 39 saves in a valiant effort. Brendan Crowley made 19 saves over the final 33 minutes after entering the game late in the first period. ND ended its season with a 12-10 record.
Swimming — The CIAC Class M Swimming Championships began on Friday, March 9 and continued on Saturday, March 10 with the diving and swim trials in Class M.
The three-day event will conclude with the CIAC Class M Swim Championships at Wesleyan early this past week. Notre Dame qualified two divers and both finished in the top 20. Michael Iasalvatore placed 16th with 286.00 points while David Albright finished 20th with 258.95 points.
You can view David’s final dive as a Green Knight on the school’s Twitter and Instagram social media outlets. We will report on the championship swim meet next week.
You can get all the latest athletic news, scores, and more by following @NDWHAthletics on Twitter, Instagram, and Periscope while frieNDing the @NDWHAthletics Facebook group.