By ANDREW LOVELL
Herald Staff

PLAINVILLE — While she never had the chance to meet Dave Rybczyk in person, first-year Plainville girls basketball coach Jen Micowski knows how much he meant to the town of Plainville.

That’s why she understands the importance of the annual David Rybczyk Memorial tournament held by Plainville High School.

“I never got to personally meet coach Rybczyk, but [I’ve listened] to people talk about him and the impact he had on Plainville and the sports here and the community,” Micowski said.

The host Blue Devils defeated SMSA on Saturday to advance to the tournament title game, where they fell to Pomperaug 50-22 Tuesday night. Despite the loss, Micowski was honored to take part in a tradition, which helps raise money for scholarships (one male and one female from Plainville High School) to Rybczyk’s alma mater, CCSU, that celebrates one of Plainville’s all-time best.

“I don’t think that there’s a better person we could be honoring by holding such a tournament annually,” Micowski said. “It gets the community and the kids and the athletes interested in such a special occasion.”

After scoring a 32-28 victory against SMSA on Saturday, Plainville (2-4) struggled to stay close to Pomperaug (4-1), who is ranked 17th in the latest CSWA girls basketball poll.

“They’re definitely a tough team. Again, we were going up against phenomenal height, at many of their positions,” Micowski said. “It’s tough for us to defend that [but] I think our kids worked hard defensively. On the offensive end we should have made more adjustments, tried to get them into more foul trouble.”

Pomperaug’s Katie Czynski (16 points, six rebounds), Mary Haase (six points, nine rebounds) and Kasey Dean (seven points, five assists) formed an intimidating trio of mid-range scoring, post dominance and superb ball distribution.

Alyssa Martino led Plainville with 13 points, including the only two 3-pointers of the game. But only four other Blue Devils found the bottom of the net, all of them combining for just nine points.

Martino and Chelseah Carroll (two points, team-high four rebounds) were both named to the all-tournament team, as was Dean. Czynski, however, proved to be the dominant force throughout, and was rewarded with tourney MVP honors.

Micowski praised the leadership of Martino and Carroll so far this season, crediting them with managing the flow of Plainville’s offense and defense.

“Alyssa’s pretty much our go-to player. She does a great job leading the offense and getting us into the offense. A lot of times she makes a lot of our points defensively off steals. She’s just a great all-around athlete and a great all-around player to coach. She gets the job done for us in many ways,” Micowski said. “Chelseah has really come through in the last few weeks and the last few practices, being a force in the paint. We’re trying to get her to attack a little more offensively, and just get a little more offensive minded. She’s working on that stuff.”

Against Pomperaug, the Blue Devils applied solid defensive pressure throughout the game. Through the first three quarters, the Panthers had only scored 34 points, which was well off their season average of about 55 points per game.

A 16-point fourth quarter helped Pomperaug reach the 50-point plateau, but Micowski was still pleased with the overall improvement of Plainville’s defense in just a matter of weeks.

“I can’t fault my team. They work hard, they give 100 percent effort. We just have to keep getting better,” she said. “We’re able to work in a little man-to-man in situations like that, and switch our defense up more so than we used to be able to. We’re making progress, it’s just a long road. There’s freshmen out there who are playing against juniors and seniors that are going for college scholarships. So, it’s an uphill battle that we’re trying to fight here.”

Micowski is hoping the Blue Devils will continue to grow defensively, as well as offensively. Plainville struggled through the entire first half, finishing with just six points at halftime. That included a one-point second quarter, in which a late Alli Caponigro free throw provided the only scoring.

Those numbers, coupled with a scoreless first quarter against SMSA, have Micowski leaning on the team’s defense right now to help create offensive chances.

“When we beat Sport Science it went down to the last minute,” Micowski said. “We executed our offense much better in the second half of that game. We went scoreless in the first quarter but still came out with a victory. Our defense played tough.”

Martino and Carroll weren’t the only Blue Devils honored upon the completion of the tournament. Liz Bowling, one of two seniors on Plainville’s roster, was given the Sportsmanship Award.

The senior, who suffered stress fractures in both of her shins toward the end of the soccer season, was able to recover in time to be a difference maker for the basketball team this year.

“With her coming off of her injuries, she was supposed to sit out another two to three weeks. But she really pushed herself and took care of herself in between soccer and basketball so she could come in and contribute much faster,” Micowski said. “She’s always leading the team in practices and even on the court, she’s kind of a calming sense. She hit the game-winner against Sports Science, so she does step up when she has to. She’s just another great all-around kid.”