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04/05/2020 12:00 AMWhen reflecting upon the East Haven girls’ basketball team’s recent season, Head Coach Anthony Russell looks at it from a three-phase perspective. The first half of the regular season was phase one, the second half was phase two, and the playoffs were the final phase. In the span of three months, Coach Russell saw a much different team at the end of the campaign than he did in the beginning.
East Haven began its season by splitting its first eight games. As the pieces started fitting into place, the Yellowjackets hit their stride and wound up finishing with an overall record of 18-8 in a year that saw that squad advance to the SCC Tournament final and the Class MM State Tournament quarterfinals.
“In the first phase, it stems from last season, where we had a player of Makenzie’s caliber, and the kids would defer to her. They were still trying to carve out their roles,” said Russell of 2019 graduate Makenzie Helms. “Once they realized what they’re capable of and being on the court with each other, it carried over into the third part of the season. Everybody was well-adjusted to what we do. They knew their roles, they knew how much they were going to play. All of that contributed to the late-season success we had.”
With Helms now a freshman at Nebraska, the Yellowjackets’ returning athletes had to find their own identity and become a brand-new basketball team. Senior captains Lexi Pendziwater and Bella Ragaini led the charge for East Haven this season. Pendziwater earned All-SCC First Team honors, while Ragaini was an All-SCC Second Team selection.
Coach Russell said that Ragaini’s nickname on the team is “Buzzer Beater Bella,” a moniker she earned after hitting a last-second basket to lift the Easties to victory over Career in the 2018 Class M state final. Meanwhile, Pendziwater finished her Yellowjackets’ tenure with 955 points and also hit 241 career 3-pointers—just five shy of the Connecticut high school record.
“I’ve been coaching the girls for 12 years. They’re going to go up there as two of the best kids who have ever played in the program,” Coach Russell said of Ragaini and Pendziwater. “Bella has such a competitive spirit, and you know she is going to play hard every second that she is out there. She does a lot of things we are going to miss. She saw the floor well, passes well, rebounds.”
“Lexi’s numbers speak for herself, but she wasn’t just one-dimensional,” Russell continued. “She was somebody who really worked on her game 12 months out of the year. Those are two kids who are iconic in the program, and we’ll have big shoes to fill in the coming years.”
Juniors Taylor Salato, Angelina Munoz, and Erin Curran were the other members of East Haven’s starting lineup this year. Salato garnered All-SCC First Team accolades and also made All-State on behalf of the Yellowjackets.
Coach Russell expects all three of these athletes to provide great leadership and excellent effort for his club next season. Going one step further, Russell expects several underclass athletes, including current sophomores Teresa Vitello, Tanner Punzo, and Kate Pycela, to receive increased playing time on the varsity floor.
“They bring a lot of experience. Salato and Curran have been starting since their sophomore year. Angelina has a full year of starting under her belt,” said Russell. “We have a lot of kids who started to get time toward the end of the season. We’re excited about next season. Hopefully, the kids put some work in during the summer.”
As the third phase of its season began, East Haven entered the SCC Tournament as the No. 4 seed. After defeating Guilford and Lyman Hall in the first two rounds, the Yellowjackets took on top-seeded Hand, which was riding an 11-game win streak, in the semifinals. East Haven got to a 17-6 lead in the first quarter before Hand outscored the Yellowjackets 20-12 in the second to cut the deficit to 29-26 at halftime. The Easties outscored the Tigers by a 20-9 margin in the fourth quarter to get a 49-37 victory and advance to the SCC final for the third year in a row.
“Our kids rise to the challenge when we play Daniel Hand. We have had great games with them over the last four or five years and, luckily, we’ve come out on the winning end of it,” Coach Russell said. “We had a couple really good days of practice the days before and, when you practice well and you’re dialed in, it translates into games. We shot the ball well, we defended really well. Knowing how to defend their best personnel and getting hot from the field in the first and fourth quarter contributed to that win.”
East Haven went on to take a 40-36 defeat to Hamden in the SCC final and then had to quickly shake off that loss to get ready to play in the Class MM State Tournament. Coach Russell said that his athletes came into states with a chip on their shoulder and knew they needed to be more assertive if they wanted to go on a long run.
After beating Capital Prep in the first round, the Yellowjackets went up against East Catholic for a second-round matchup. Despite trailing 31-18 at halftime, the Easties kept fighting and walked off the floor with a 55-50 victory.
“The coaching staff and I simply said, ‘Play like you want to be here. If you keep playing like this for the next 16 minutes, our season is going to end.’ That, in addition to us applying some pressure, increased our intensity, and we slowly started to make a comeback,” said Russell. “We got their lead down to single digits in the fourth quarter, and then we started getting really good offensive possessions. Defensively, we got some good stops. It all carried over into that win.”
East Haven was slated to face No. 3 seed Sheehan in the Class MM quarterfinals, but the tournament was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Even though they didn’t get to finish the season the way they wanted to, the Yellowjackets played some quality basketball as the team’s athletes learned their roles and meshed together while the campaign unfolded. Behind two legendary seniors, three talented juniors, and a few other athletes with potential, East Haven girls’ hoops once again demonstrated that it has the right formula for a successful program.
“We’re a good place. When I took over 12 years ago, it’s always where I wanted to be,” Coach Russell said. “I remember watching Hillhouse and Mercy and Guilford in the SCC finals and wondering how we would ever get to this point. To have the best record in the conference the last two or three years, being the No. 1 seed and getting to the SCC finals, advancing to at least the quarterfinals in the State Tournament the last four or five years, winning a state title—it’s where I always wanted the program to get to. It was a group effort—the community supporting us, the administrators, the coaches, the kids, the parents. I’m excited where we are and, hopefully, we can continue this trend.”