By Drew Terhall

Dailyadvocate.com

ANSONIA — From the start of the game, it was all Botkins. The Ansonia girls basketball team lost to the Lady Trojans, 45-21, at home on Jan. 27.

Head coach Connor Custenborder said with this loss being their sixth straight, the team is just starting to get into their own heads.

“A lot of us are in our own heads. We just got to be able to move on from it. We’ve told the girls we believe in them fully, we just got to get them to believe in themselves,” Custenborder said. “We’ve shown it, we started the year 4-1.”

The Lady Trojans led 12-2 after the first quarter. Ansonia played good enough defensively to stay in the game, they just couldn’t get shots to fall.

Then the three-point shot started to fall for Botkins. They made four threes in the second quarter. After a rough stretch of play, Custenborder subbed out his entire starting lineup for a minute.

He said at the time he was frustrated with them and just wanted to talk with them.

“We gave up an open three, didn’t matchup out of a timeout. It’s something we’ve been struggling with a lot lately is not knowing who we have,” Custenborder said. “I was frustrated with them, took them out. Then put them back in and they figured it out from there.”

Botkins led 29-10 at halftime and rode their momentum throughout the second half.

Ansonia didn’t allow as many threes in the second half, but couldn’t get the offense going. Turnovers started to be an issue for Ansonia.

Custenborder said they have to take care of the ball better. More turnovers mean they spend less time pressing. He said they can generate more offense when they are pressing.

Ansonia did all they could to compete in a physical game. The bad stretches of offense was too much to overcome for them.

Senior Bailey Schmit led the team with six points. Sophomore Olivia Creager and junior Gabby Leeper both had four points.

Custenborder said he just needs to life the team up mentally to get through this losing streak. He also said they have shown they could beat some of the teams they have played in their last six games. Ansonia just needs to put together a complete game.

“We’ve played with a lot of good teams for a half or for a quarter. We just got to put it together for a full game,” Custenborder said.

Ansonia is now 6-11 on the season with a 3-6 WOAC record. They will host Carlisle on Jan. 30 at 7 p.m. and then host National Trail on Feb. 1 at 7:15 p.m.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]