FACE TIME: Stuart Country Day School basketball player Nneka Onukwugha takes a shot to the face as she heads to the basket in recent action. Last Friday, senior forward Onukwugha scored eight points as Stuart topped Noor-Ul-Iman School 48-10 to improve to 5-3. The program will be hosting its Stuart Christmas Tournament from December 27-28. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

Hosting Pennington last Wednesday the Stuart Country Day School basketball team battled the Red Raiders to an 8-8 standoff in the fourth quarter.

Unfortunately since the Tartans entered the quarter trailing Pennington 51-23, their good play down the stretch just maintained the status quo in a 59-31 win by the Red Raiders.

Stuart first year head coach Justin Leith acknowledged that a sluggish first quarter doomed his squad to defeat.

“The key was that we started out that slow,” said Leith, whose team trailed 23-8 heading into the second quarter.

“It teaches us that you can’t come out with nerves; you can’t come out with  apprehension. We have to come out the way we started the second half and the way some of the players finished the game.”

Leith liked the way junior forward Kate Walsh finished inside as she tallied a game-high 20 points in a losing cause.

“I thought Kate was gritty,” said Leith. “She had 22 points against  Germantown Friends the other day when we came back and almost won. She did a great job today, she has nice inside moves. We need to follow that up with some more defensive pressure and defensive stops.”

Senior Harlyn Bell did provide the Tartans with some defensive intensity in the loss to Pennington.

“I liked what she did on help side defense,” added Leith. “She was there, she was talking. She wasn’t allowing people to cut in front of her, she was boxing out every single time. One time she left her man on the weak side to go pick up someone on the strong side because she wasn’t being guarded and when I see things like that, then I am encouraged.”

The play of junior guard Harley Guzman and senior forward Nneka Onukwugha has been encouraging.

“Harley is our leader, she needs to be our point guard,” said Leith. “She certainly has her moments where she sometimes takes over. In this game, she tried to a couple of times but the lay-ups didn’t fall the way she wanted to. She had 15 points against PDS. You get Nneka in there, playing tough inside and getting rebounds and we are putting together a nice little basketball team.”

Leith acknowledges that Stuart hasn’t put it together yet. “We have had a bunch of pieces of great basketball,” said Leith, whose team improved to 5-3 with a 48-10 win over Noor-Ul-Iman School last Friday.

“Against Germantown Friends, we came all the way back and they went up by four with 13 seconds left, it was just so close. We have had all of these moments that we need to put together and that is going to happen.”

In order to make more good things happen, Stuart has to show more resolve on the court.

“I told them that some of the toughness is cultivated and they really out-toughed us today,” said Leith.

“Our girls are tough, they are, but we need to put together the moments. We need to continue to cultivate that toughness and we are going to do that over winter break.”

With its Stuart Christmas Tournament being held from December 27-28, the team is going to work hard over the holidays.

“A lot of that is going to be going back to the basics and teaching more,” said Leith, whose team faces Doane Academy in the opening round on December 27 and then either Princeton High or Germantown Friends the next day.

“It is like another preseason with no distraction of homework or anything else. It is just basketball and we get to come together as a team and bond a little bit more.”

In Leith’s view, mastering the basics will yield dividends over the course of the winter.

“We need to continue to get better over the season with each practice and each game,” said Leith.

“As long as we put more and more of those moments together, those good moments of the great defense, the hustle, the diving on the floor, the beautiful offense that they show sometimes, that is a successful season. We are going to build on that over the year here.”