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Chase Anderson has been the catalyst for the Woodstock Academy boys’ basketball team all season.
Unfortunately, the Norwich Free Academy Wildcats took him away from the Centaurs Feb. 22 in the Eastern Connecticut Conference Division I tournament semifinals.
As a result, the seventh-seeded Centaurs saw their hopes for an ECC championship game appearance at Mohegan Sun Arena come to an end with a 63-42 loss to third-seeded NFA.
The Wildcats put a box-and-one on Anderson and held him to just one point and just one shot in the game.
“It’s tough because when things go through (Anderson), things go well and it kind of feeds off in other areas. It just clogged us up in the middle. We tried to make some adjustments, some of them worked sometimes, some of them didn’t. I give credit to my guys. They kept trying, they kept fighting and working hard,” said Woodstock Academy coach Marty Hart.
Xavier Marquez was responsible for much of the work on Anderson who came into the game with a 19.3 point per game average.
“He works hard,” Hart said of Marquez. “He was right there, glued to him, and he did it efficiently and cleanly. He has both strength and speed and he’s pretty savvy.”
The Centaurs (10-11) hung with the Wildcats for the first quarter.
Luke Mathewson hit four of his six points in the game and Cole Hackett added a bucket to keep the Centaurs close at 8-7.
But NFA is also very good from beyond the 3-point arc and it displayed its long-range prowess early.
Nick Hay (20 points) hit a pair of 3-pointers and finished with eight first quarter points and Mason Jackson added a trey to put the Wildcats on top at the end of the opening quarter, 13-7.
NFA rained down 3-pointers in the second quarter.
Nolan Molkenthin hit two and both Andrew Gromko and Hay hit one each in a 2:20 time span that expanded NFA’s lead to 27-9.
“We need six guys to cover a team that shoots it that well,” Hart said with a shake of his head. “They have great speed and length. We tried a lot of different combinations, and just had a hard time catching up to them sometimes.”
The Wildcats (16-6) also posed more issues defensively than just against Anderson. Few shots were uncontested and the ball was often doubled.
“It just throws a wrench in the whole system when you can’t get through things fluidly and you want guys to make decisions in quick, real time. (NFA) made a lot of mistakes defensively, but it can correct them with the length of Mason and the speed and athleticism of their other players,” Hart said.
The Wildcats led by 15 at the half and expanded it to 21 by the end of the fourth quarter.
Cole Hackett kept the Centaurs in the game in the second half when he scored 14 of his 18 points in the game.
Woodstock Academy was coming off a strong effort against second-seeded E. Lyme in the quarterfinals.
The Centaurs knocked off the Vikings, 56-42, in East Lyme to advance to Saturday’s semifinal round.
“We were ecstatic after that win,” Mathewson said. “Everyone was jumping up-and-down in the locker room. We went in as crazy underdogs, just like last year in the ECC tournament (when the Centaurs advanced to the Division II championship game) as the seventh seed having to face the two seed. We just went in, played team basketball, and it worked out in the end.”
The Centaurs played well defensively against the Vikings (14-7) in the middle quarters, holding East Lyme to single-digit scoring.
Woodstock Academy fell behind 12-10 in the first quarter but rallied to take a 22-18 lead at the break.
The Centaurs increased the lead to double digits by the end of the third quarter.
“It was a defensive game. Everyone worked hard together,” Mathewson said. “Late in the third quarter, we went on a solid run to break away.”
Anderson finished with 20 points, four steals and three assists to lead the Centaurs.
Hackett added 12 points and completed as double-double effort with 10 rebounds. Aidan Morin contributed 10 points, three assists and a pair of blocks.
The Centaurs were pretty happy with how the first half went last Tuesday night.
The second half? Not so much.
As a result, Woodstock Academy fell to the Waterford Lancers, 76-51, at the Alumni Fieldhouse.
The loss meant the Centaurs finished with a 5-3 record in Division II of the Eastern Connecticut Conference.
The Centaurs fell behind the Lancers in the first quarter on Tuesday.
Waterford (19-1, 8-0 ECC Division II) led only 7-6 after Morin hit a bucket with 3:48 left in the quarter.
But the Lancers rattled off the next seven points, four of them by guard J.J. Brennan (20 points), to take the 14-6 lead.
Aaron Johnson got hot, however, in the second quarter. The senior guard launched six 3-pointers, the first five went in.
He also scored on a traditional three-point play off the fast break to give him 18 points for the quarter.
“Aaron Johnson gave us a big lift when he got hot. That really picked up the slack. We’re balanced; we try to use all the guys we have where we can use them. I was really pleased with the first half,” Hart said.
The offense got the Centaurs back in range as they trailed only 30-28 at the half and the defense kept them there.
“We had good execution and we were able to locate their shooters,” Hart said.
That same formula did not exist in the second half.
“They turned up the pressure and we didn’t handle it,” Hart said.
The two teams exchanged baskets in the first minute but five turnovers put Woodstock Academy behind the eight ball.
The Lancers turned those miscues into baskets and broke out to a 42-32 lead.
Hart did all he could, calling a trio of time outs to try and stem the tide.
“We handled it a little better (after the first time out), and then it got a little harder, and had to call a couple of more time outs just to try and slow things down. They’re a versatile team; they have a lot of length and speed. I have to credit our guys for fighting hard,” Hart said.
After the Lancers went up by 10, their point guard Kenny Hill (20 points) found the range as well and hit a pair of 3-pointers for Waterford to put them up 12.
The two teams essentially traded baskets the remainder of the way in the third quarter but the Centaurs trailed by 16, 59-43, going into the final period and never got closer than 14 the rest of the way.
Johnson finished with 25 points and was the only Centaur in double figures.
Anderson was held five points although he did pull down 10 boards.
Anderson was under the weather and had to take frequent breaks in the game.
“He’s a leader for us, a rebounder, a facilitator and then we get scoring from him. When he is under the weather, he still wants to give it all he can, but there just wasn’t gas in the tank. We tested it a couple of times and shut him down early,” Hart said.
The Centaurs are not done with the regular season.
They still had a game with E.O. Smith Feb. 25. The game ended too late for this edition.
“It’s strange,” Hart agreed having a regular season game still to play in the midst of the ECC tournament. “That game got shifted due to weather and then shifted again. It’s in an odd spot, but it’s an out-of-conference game and we’re looking forward to playing it. We had to put it somewhere because it counts toward the (state) tournament. We did the best we could with what we had at the time and it’s tough when weather stacks you up.”
Marc Allard
Sports Information Director
The Woodstock Academy
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