Housatonic girls stifle Gilbert to stay unbeaten

By STEVE BARLOW
Republican-American
WINSTED – The Hive was buzzing Tuesday night, but the Housatonic High girls basketball team silenced Gilbert’s offense in a 49-38 victory that gave the Mountaineers firm control of the Berkshire League race.
Housy remained undefeated at 8-0 and atop the conference at 7-0, while Gilbert fell to 7-2, 5-2. Northwestern is now alone in second at 6-1.
The game was tied at 14-14 with just under three minutes to go in the first half, but Madelynn Olownia (11 points) quickly scored on a jumper for the Mountaineers, who then held Gilbert scoreless until the break for a 20-14 halftime lead.
Sierra O’Niel (10 points) opened the second half with a 3-pointer for Housy to build the lead to nine points, and the Yellowjackets never got closer than eight after that.
The Mountaineers’ zone defense forced Gilbert guards Jill Wexler and Marci Moreira to launch long 3-point attempts, and in the paint 6-foot freshman Sydney Segalla blocked several shots and contested the ones she didn’t.
“Overall, you’ve got to give our defense credit,” Housy coach Steve Dodge said. “We said that if we could keep them under (40), we should be able to win the basketball game, especially against Gilbert, which has put up some big numbers.”
“We were rotating to the side that had the most shooters,” explained O’Niel. “Down low, our bigs had it covered, so our top three didn’t have to drop down as much.”
Caroline Hurlburt led Housatonic with 12 points and Segalla added 10.
“We kind of came in (to the season) as the underdogs, but we’ve showed everyone we have more strength than that,” said Hurlburt. “We weren’t expecting to be (8-0), but I knew we had the potential. We’ve worked really hard and I’m proud of everyone.”