Girls Basketball

December 22, 2009

Hayes' 15 lead Bayonne past SDA

Connie Hayes Bayonne

Connie Hayes scored 10 of her team-best 15 points in the second quarter.

Click Here for photos from St. Dominic Academy at Bayonne.

By Jason Bernstein
Editorial Director

BAYONNE – Connie Hayes considers No. 23 to be a shooter’s number. Yesterday against St. Dominic Academy, the senior guard lived up to the 23 on her jersey.

Hayes connected on a trio of 3-pointers, en route to a team-best 15 points to lead Bayonne past the Blue Devils 44-35.

“I’ve been shooting my whole life,” Hayes said. “That’s the first thing I learned how to do when I played basketball. I’m a natural shooter.”

After a closely-contested opening quarter, the Bees (2-0) started to pull away thanks to the hot hand of Hayes. The senior guard connected on a pair of 3-pointers from the corner on consecutive possessions in the first minute of the second.

“I think it gave us a lot of confidence to go out there and play hard because they came out stronger than us,” Hayes said.

“Once she hit the big 3-pointers it rejuvenated them so we had to switch the defense to a box-and-one and get a hand in her face on every shot,” St. Dominic coach Reggie Quinn said.

Hayes’ two treys opened up the Bayonne lead to eight points and served as the catalyst to a 16-9 second quarter for the Bees. Hayes added four more points in the period, the last basket coming with two seconds left in the first half.

“With Connie, I got a saying for her, it’s either the feast or the famine,” Bayonne coach James Turner said. “Either we’re going to eat or we’re going to starve. She hit two big threes that really got us jump started.”

The Blue Devils (0-2) started to chip away as an Arianna Nieves 3-pointer cut the deficit to six, but Hayes dashed any comeback hopes. She delivered a long-range dagger to make it 38-28 with 3:25 left in the game to preserve the victory.

Hayes’ second quarter outburst put St. Dominic on the verge of a blowout, but they stayed in the game with the play of Bria Smith. Smith used her size and athleticism to slash through Bayonne defense for 10 first half points.

“In the first half we didn’t make her fight for her shots,” Turner said. “In the first half, she was getting the ball too easily. In the second half, we made some adjustments, put Lisa (Rovatsos) on her, someone’s who quicker.”

Smith added six more points in the second half to finish with a game-high of 16, but all of her second half points came from the foul line.

Smith’s contribution for the Blue Devils went well beyond her scoring. She added 10 rebounds for a double-double. Normally a forward, Quinn shifted Smith to the role of point guard in the second half “to create mismatches.”

“(Bria’s) strong, she doesn’t back down,” Hayes said. “When we play St. Dom’s it’s the ‘Bria Show.’”

Smith’s athleticism also proved critical on the defensive end as she limited Rovatsos, Bayonne’s leading scorer to six points and 11 rebounds.

Kerri Kosikowski had another big performance for the Bees, recording 12 points and 11 rebounds. Eight of those points came in the opening quarter. Kosikowski’s old-fashioned 3-point play in the final minute of the period gave Bayonne a lead they would never relinquish.

Nieves had eight points for St. Dominic while Alyssa Romano and Kierstyn Callahan added eight and seven rebounds apiece.

For the Blue Devils, an 0-2 record is hardly an ideal start to the season, but after playing the two Coviello finalists from a year ago, Quinn feels like the team is heading in the right direction.

“The girls responded,” Quinn said. “We just want to establish ourselves as a team that’s going to come out and play hard every game. We can see where we want to go.”

Arianna Nieves St. Dominic

St. Dominic Academy guard Arianna Nieves sunk a pair of 3-pointers in the loss.

  1 2 3 4 Total
St. Dominic Academy Blue Devils (0-2)
8
9
6
12
35
Bayonne Bees (2-0)
10
16
6
12
44
St. Dominic Academy   Bayonne
  2s 3s 1s Pts
Bria Smith
5
0
6
16
Kierstyn Callahan
1
0
0
2
Alyssa Romano
0
0
2
2
Katheryn Hussey
0
0
0
0
Arianna Nieves
1
2
0
8
Brianna Daly
0
0
0
0
Shannon Hood
1
0
2
4
Natalia Ortega
0
1
0
3
Total
8
3
10
35
         
 
  2s 3s 1s Pts
Samantha Maggio
1
0
2
4
Kerri Kosikowski
3
0
6
12
Connie Hayes
2
3
2
15
Lisa Rovatsos
2
0
2
6
Tara Flynn
0
0
1
1
Kaitlin Gallagher
1
0
0
2
Luisa Montalvo
2
0
0
4
 
Total
11
3
13
44
     
Bayonne: Kosikowski 11 rebounds; Rovatsos 11 rebounds; Hayes 6 rebounds. St. Dominic Academy: Smith 10 rebounds; Romano 8 rebounds; Callahan 7 rebounds.