Tomahawks look to close season strong

Glastonbury's Jalen Ollie takes to the air for a two-pointer vs. East Catholic on Jan. 31. Photos by Steve Smith.

The Glastonbury High School boys' basketball team dropped to 10-5 after a five-game win streak was snapped by East Catholic on Jan. 31, by a score of 56-52. After that game, coach Jim Vaughan said his team is not short on talent, but just has times when they don't play up to their own level of excellence, and has games where that shows more than others.

“I thought we had a poor first half,” Vaughan said. “We came back and took the lead, and to East's credit, they made some tough shots, but I also thought we had some breakdowns. We had a chance to close the game out defensively, but we broke down.”

With five games left in the regular season, the Tomahawks have just a short amount of time to find that consistency before post-season tournaments begin. In those games, and in practices, Vaughan said there's nothing off the table as far as what the team needs to work on.

“A little bit of everything,” he said. “We've been playing pretty well, but sometimes the other team appears to want it more than us. I'm not really even thinking about playoff games yet. I just want to get some more wins under our belt.”

Prior to the East Catholic game, Vaughan said the Tomahawks were used to playing close games.

“Three of our losses were down to the last 40 seconds,” he said. “We've been in every game we've played. It's a matter of doing the right things at the end. We believe in ourselves. We think we're a pretty good team. It's just a matter of going out and doing it.”

At press time, the Tomahawks were preparing to take on Windsor on Feb. 2 and hoped to avenge a loss from earlier in the season. Vaughan said that test would at least teach his team something.

Glastonbury travels to Weaver on Feb. 7 and then hosts South Windsor on Feb. 12.

For a complete schedule, visit www.casciac.org.