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Hartford Needs Momentum Shift-Hartford Courant.

 

Hartford Needs Momentum Shift

March 11, 2004

By WOODY ANDERSON, Courant Staff Writer

 

It isn't lack of effort that's at the root of Hartford limping to the regular season finish 2-8. Maybe it's just the way basketball is, coach Jen Rizzotti says, "flow and momentum. Either things go your way or they don't."

 

Certainly the Hawks had an abundance of flow and momentum during a nine-game winning streak.

 

"You don't get called for things," Rizzotti said. "When we were winning, it was easy."

 

Butnow it seems as if everything is going against them.

 

The Hawks are in a tenuous state for tonight's America East women's quarterfinal game at Chase Family Arena against Albany.

 

The same players who were 16-3 at one point are now 18-11.

 

Fouls are up but that can mostly be explained because the Hawks are trailing and fouling to stop the clock. Turnovers are up. Rizzotti said that's because of a lack of focus.

 

"Earlier in the year when we were fresher mentally and physically we didn't do that," Rizzotti said. "Now when the season is getting really long we can't maintain it and there's no excuse for it.

 

"This time of year either you have kids who are mentally tough or you don't. And we don't and it's a hard thing to fix."

 

And therein, perhaps, lies the problem. When the Hawks won the America East title two years they had six seniors and four juniors who carried the team to a 9-2 finish. Now the Hawks have one senior, Bridget Murray, and juniors Tanika Price and Liz Stich, who have been inconsistent. Sophomore Erika Messam and freshman Ikea Witt made All-Conference teams.

 

Murray pointed out that Price and Stich have missed a lot of time in their careers because of injury or illness.

 

"The sophomore class played all of last year so we do have experience and talent, but it's hard to turn the team over to sophomores," Murray said. "You want the upperclassmen to do well, but there's so few of us."

 

Rizzotti noted that Maine, Binghamton, Boston University and Vermont, the hottest team in the conference, are led by seniors who are playing well, just as her seniors did two years ago.

 

But Rizzotti doesn't think it's over.

 

"We're good enough to win 18 games and we're playing at home. We know what it takes. Who's to say we can't turn it around?"

 

Albany, for one. The Great Danes have defeated the Hawks twice this season. Because they are long and lanky their 2-3 zone has been crippling to the Hawks.

 

"This is the first time we've been in a postseason tournament since turning Division I," coach Trina Patterson said. "And we've been peaking lately." Her team has won seven of its last 10.

 

Patterson took over the team three years ago, when it was coming off a 4-23 season.

 

"I had to change their attitude," Patterson said.

 

Now the Great Danes are 12-15, 9-9 in the conference.

 

Murray has noticed the Great Danes' hunger.

 

"They're a bunch of smart kids who have lost their whole careers," Murray said. "But we have more talent. It's a matter of us getting over that they beat us twice."