Kings Park’s Defense Too Much For Bonackers

An outstanding season came to a close for the East Hampton girls varsity basketball team on Tuesday night at Kings Park as the Lady Bonackers lost 48-34 to the Kingsmen in one of the Suffolk County Class A playoff quarterfinals.

From the opening minute, Kings Park used its swarming stonewall defense to limit East Hampton’s scoring chances while providing themselves with ample opportunities to put the game out of reach. For most of the game, the Lady Kingsmen’s plan was executed perfectly, until the Bonackers were able to find some room and get their fast break going, cutting Kings Park’s lead to 35-27 midway through the fourth quarter. That’s when their coach called a short timeout and addressed his team at their bench.

“I told our players to wake up,” said Kingsmen head coach Tom Edmundson. “At that moment, we just had to wake up and finish our shots. At that point in the game, we couldn’t buy a basket and we weren’t making smart decisions, but the girls responded and we were able to turn it around quickly.”

The Bonackers (12-7 overall) which haven’t made the playoffs or had a winning season in 17 years, were able to ride star scorer Kaelyn Ward into a rare postseason appearance although she was immediately double-teamed whenever she got near the basketball.

“Marjorie Duffel and Shannon Ahern both played amazing defense on Ward, who we knew coming into the game was a big-time scorer and our main goal was to shut her down,” Edmundson said. “I was real happy with how they were able to do that.”

Ward, who averaged close to 16 points per game this season, finished with just eight points. Jasmine Stephens also scored eight points for the Bonackers

Meghan Eckel and Marion Kawecki were the game’s leading scorers with 10 points each and Eckel added nine rebounds and six assists. Buoncore scored nine points and grabbed eight rebounds while Taylor Bailey dropped in seven points.

What East Hampton was able to accomplish this season can’t easily be described in words. Its players, guided by the hard work of head coach Howard Wood, erased 17 seasons of disappointment and by making the playoffs with an impressive winning record, rejuvenated a program which had been denied success for nearly two decades.

Ward, along with Sarah Johnson, Samantha Dombkowski, Mazi Makraines, Kelsi Thorsen, Bonnie Spink-O’Brien, Jasmine Stephens, Nicole Miksinski and Indrea Stephens all deserve credit for putting East Hampton’s girls basketball program back on the map.