The Ansonia girls basketball team just concluded one of the most successful sports seasons in the school’s history.
The Lady Chargers finished the season 17 – 8 and were able to make the NVL semifinals and the quarterfinals of the Class M state tournament.
The 17 wins are the most a girls sport has had in a season at Ansonia High since the 1980s.
Their season ended Thursday at Haddam-Killingworth after suffering a 52 – 37 loss to the 20 – 5 Cougars in the Class M quarterfinals.
Ansonia returned only three girls with varsity experience from last year’s 15 – 8 team but those three girls led the way to a great season.
Senior tri-captains Melissa Tirella, Tierney Lawlor and Quanisha Finney finished off their high school careers by leading the team to two state tournament wins, something that also hasn’t been done since the 80s.
Tirella finished as the 2nd leading scorer in AHS Girls Basketball history with 1,293 points, just 15 points shy of the school record held by current assistant Aleisha Mott Coughlin.
Melissa scored 26 points in each tournament victory, 52 – 34 over Prince Tech and 53 – 44 over Lewis Mills and averaged just over 18 points a game this year.
Melissa set a school record with 149 made three pointers in her career and won the Dottie Shortell Award, which is given to the Most Outstanding Senior in the NVL.
She was also named 1st team All-NVL for three straight years, something that has never been done by an Ansonia player.
Lawlor finished this season with an average of 13 points and 10 rebounds per game. For her career, Lawlor scored 901 points and pulled down 739 rebounds.
Tierney was named to 1st team All-Brass for the 3rd year in a row. She is a three sport star (soccer & softball) and is ranked 3rd academically in her class. She was the team’s leading scorer at Haddam-Killingworth with 16 points.
Both Tirella and Lawlor started for four years and helped Ansonia win 55 games in their 4 seasons.
Finney is just a great story of never giving up. She was a JV bench player for her 1st two years and gradually got better each year and found herself as a full time varsity starter as a junior.
Quanisha was named a captain for her senior year and ripped down 387 rebounds in her two years as the Varsity center. She was the teams’ 3rd leading scorer this year averaging 5 points a game.
“Not having these three girls back next year is a major hole that needs to be filled,” said Patrick Lynch, Ansonia’s head coach. “These girls gave everything they had to this program and they will be sorely missed.”
There are some girls who will have to help fill those holes next year.
Juniors Morgan Westine and Grace Keener both started and enjoyed success in their first year playing on the Varsity team.
Other players that saw some action throughout the year that will have to help fill the holes are sophomores Quentesa Robinson and Jackie Daniels.
Westine had a great second half of the season and she averaged just over 6 points a game for the last 12 games and played her best game of the season in the Lady Chargers 2nd round upset at 17 – 6 Lewis Mills. She scored a career high 9 points, including 5 of 6 from the free throw line in the 4th quarter and held Mills’ leading scorer to 4 points.
Keener battled through injuries throughout the year that made her miss two games late in the regular season but managed to average just over 3 points and 5 rebounds per game.
Daniels and Robinson played sparingly but will have to take a much larger role next year if Ansonia wants to have any success.
“Morgan and Grace really came along as the season progressed,” explained Lynch. “Jackie and Quentesa got some experience and showed signs of potential. They all need to get better from April to November this year, so they are ready to take on a much larger role next year.”
Ansonia will have a much different team next year but this year they had one of the most successful seasons in school history and that’s something to be very proud of.
