Lyman edges St. Bernard to take control in ECC D-IV race
Feb. 3—LEBANON — The intimate gymnasium at Lyman Memorial is adorned with banners on all sides recognizing the school's division, conference and state champions.
The girls' basketball banner hasn't had any division titles added to it since 2016, and this current group of Bulldogs is aiming to change that.
Lyman Memorial took a big step towards earning a division title on Thursday night. It led St. Bernard almost all game and endured a hectic final minute to win, 39-37, and take sole possession of first place in Division IV of the Eastern Connecticut Conference.
"We haven't had (a division title) in a while and we've been pretty good this season, so it just does mean a lot," Bulldogs senior Taylor Pankowski said. "I think we all worked very hard for it."
Lyman is 11-4 and 5-0 in Division IV.
The Saints are 8-7, 5-1. They'll host Lyman Memorial next Monday (Feb. 6).
Pankowski, one of the Bulldogs two seniors, had 17 points and sophomore Phoebe Carpenter had 10 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks. Sophomore Jenny Lopez, playing through foul trouble, had six points and three steals while senior Kassidy LaTour added six rebounds.
Junior Angelica Tompkins carried St. Bernard's offense as she has all season. She scored 19 of her game-high 28 in the second half and added 15 rebounds. Freshman Morghan Kuhn added 10 rebounds.
LaTour's layup with 3 minutes, 54 seconds gave Lyman a 39-33 lead.
Tompkins answered with a layup followed by two free throws to cut the Bulldogs lead to 39-37 with 2:07 remaining.
Lyman was able to dribble some time off the clock and went to the line twice in the final 31 seconds. It missed the first free throw on both occasions with the Saints getting the rebound. They got the ball off a missed free throw in the closing seconds but couldn't get a shot off in time.
"The girls fought hard," said second-year Bulldogs head coach David Lopez. "We just wanted to run out the clock and force them to put us on the line. We were able to kill a significant amount of time at the end there.
Lopez smiled and added, "It was shaky and it was scary."
Lyman used a strong first quarter to go ahead 14-3. Junior Kelsey Dunnack and Lopez each had two of the Bulldogs five steals that quarter with St. Bernard turning it over nine times.
The Saints settled down after that and began asserting themselves on the boards to take away second chances from Lyman.
Tompkins, meanwhile, did what she's done all season — score. A lot. She scored 12 unanswered points in the third quarter to give her team a 30-29 lead with 1:01 left in the period.
Carpenter made two free throws with 11.6 seconds left in the third to put Lyman ahead for good.
"They came out really hard against us man-to-man double-and-triple teaming Angelica everywhere," St. Bernard head coach Mike Nystrom said. "We haven't seen a lot of man-to-man this year. ... I thought that they were real quick in the beginning and even when they helped on Angelica, they recovered fast.
"We had three freshman out there (at times), so that's encouraging. Lyman is pretty good. I know that. (But) before you play a team you never really know. 'Are they too fast for us?' Obviously, we had chances to tie the game at the end there and we didn't but I think we played pretty well. Now we get them at home. Now we know (we can play with them). Now I really know."
