Hamden Hall Loses to Choate 79 to 54

Playing away from home, a hot shooting night for our opponent, along with poor defense by the Hornets, is not a good combination that wins games.

Choate made 9 three’s and shot better than 50 percent from the floor along with 11 for 14 from the charity stripe for their first win of the season (1-9). It was clear that the taller and stronger Choate had something to prove as an “A” school against the “C” classification of Hamden Hall. They had two key players who hadn’t played in sometime (6’8 and 6’7) who returned from injuries after the holiday break. This was clearly was a different team that their record indicated.

The first half Junior T.J Rountree kept pace with the scoring of Choate with 13 points and Sophomore Chris Wright came off the bench to add energy and 5 points as the half closed with the score Choate 40 and Hamden Hall 30. The second half Choate continued the hot hand as they kept the lead and didn’t let the Hornets get any closer than 6 points.

Box Score:

TJ Rountree-3-4-3/4-21 pts,Rice-2-1-2/4-9 pts,Wright-2-1-0-7pts,Smith-3-0-0-6 pts,Draffan-1-0-1/1-3 pts,Moran-0-1-0-3pts.

DiMartino-0-0-2/2-2 pts.A.Rountree-1-0-0-2 pts.Villano-0-0-1/2-1 pt.Johns-0-0-0,Johnson-0-0-0,Cogdell-0-0-0,Williams-0-0-0

10-7-9/14-54 points

This loss may be a good learning experience for the young Hornets who will play a key Fairchester League game the next day against The Master’s School, from Dobbs Ferry.

Defense is the key to winning especially when you play teams that have a physical advantage and we didn’t, thus the game ended with our fourth loss of the season.

This is a learning process and certainly playing against talented players is always a challenge; however we, as a coaching staff, will continue to push the issue of defense as the catalyst to a winning season.