On Tuesday night, the girls basketball team started their 2021-2022 season by traveling to Lebanon, and to face the Lady Bulldogs from Lyman Memorial High School.
The game started a little late as a result of the JV game starting 15 minutes late.
The Wolverines started hot right out of the gate Lindsey VanLanen hitting a couple of 3’s in the opening few minutes. Lyman did answer with Kelsey Dunnock who scored 5 points in the first and made it very close at the end of the 1st period, 14-13.
The Wolverines showed passing skills that you don’t normally see during the first game of the year with all 5 of the starters on the board at the half, plus shutting down Dunnock, led to a 25-21 lead at the half.
With it being the first game of the year, it looked like it was going to come down to who had the most stamina and gas to go the distance. Lyman was pumped from the opening of the 2nd half and immediately went on a 5-0 run led by the Bulldogs, Kasey Cook, and took the lead. The Wolverines looked a little blown up after the halftime break, and long time Griswold Girls Head Coach Kevin Babcock called a timeout to re-group.
When the game restarted, senior captain Sonja Mattheson displayed “senior leadership” completely taking over the pace of the game, scoring 10 out of her 12 points in the 3rd alone. Matteson was also very active on the boards. She was seemingly in almost every play equation after the timeout from Babcock. Griswold took back the lead and extended it to 10, leading 41-31 after 3.
Lyman went cold although getting many second chance shots, except for one Lady Bulldog, Taylor Pankowski, who had 11 of her 14 total in the 4th. No other player for Lyman was able to score in the 4th period.
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Lyman got into foul trouble in the middle of the 4th which led to Griswold being able to shoot free throws for a while. They say you can win or lose at the charity stripe, and Griswold proved that theory true, or at least Hailey Eliasson proved it to be true by going 9/10 at the free throw line.
For Griswold, the seniors took over in the 2nd half. All three starting seniors were in double digits in scoring, Eliasson, Van Lanen, and Matteson all had 12 points. Although the team shot only 46% from the line, the seniors alone shot 85%. Lyman shot 57% from the free throw line.
A bright spot for Lyman was the play of Taylor Pankowski, who led all scorers with 15 points, and single handedly keeping her team in the game by scoring all of her team’s points in the 4th period (11pts).
Griswold goes on the road again Thursday, December 16, to take on the Lady Bears of Stonington. Lyman Memorial doesn’t play again until Saturday when they travel to East Hampton to face the Bell Ringers.