Notre Dame-Fairfield unanimously maintained its hold on the No. 1 ranking while FCIAC teams Norwalk and Staples are ranked third and fifth, respectively, in the latest GameTimeCT Girls Basketball Top 10 Poll which was released Jan. 26.
Notre Dame-Fairfield, which dropped to 10-1 after suffering its first loss of the year to Hudson Catholic (N.J.) by a 61-48 margin, received every first-place vote and totaled 510 points from the group of 17 voters, most of them media members along with a few coaches.
The voters vote on their own top 15 teams in the state, in order, and votes are tabulated on a 30-28-26-24-22-20-18-16-14-12- 11-10-9-8-7 basis. The records listed for each team include all games played through Jan. 25.
Newtown (9-2) was voted second again despite losing a game but that loss happened to come against top-ranked ND-Fairfield, 56-53.
Norwalk won twice last week to improve to 9-2 and move up two slots to No. 3. Newtown accumulated 468 points in the voting, Norwalk got 400 and fourth-ranked Norwich Free Academy (10-2) received 364.
Staples also won twice, improving the Wreckers to 10-2, and that enabled them to move up to fifth from eighth in the previous poll. They received 326 polling points.
The five teams ranked 6-through-10, in order, are Wethersfield (12-1), Newington (10-2), New London (10-3), Southington (12-1) and East Catholic (10-2).
Stamford (9-2) and Trumbull (9-3) are the two FCIAC teams in the “Others receiving votes” category.
Stamford was ranked seventh in the previous week’s poll released Jan. 19 but the Black Knights lost a home game to Trumbull, 46-41, on Jan. 21 so that dropped them out of the Top 10 and they received the 12th most polling points in this latest poll.
Trumbull received the 14th most points in the latest poll. Trumbull’s Eagles had received the 11th most points in the state in the previous Jan. 19 poll but they followed up their big win at Stamford with a 33-29 upset loss at home to New Canaan on Jan. 24 so that is why they slid down three slots.
Norwalk was ranked third and Staples was not ranked couple of weeks back in the Top 10 Poll released on Jan. 12. But Staples stepped up with a big 43-35 victory at Norwalk on Jan. 14. That enabled the Staples Wreckers to make a big move and propel themselves up to No. 8 in the Top 10 which was released on Jan. 19 although they did follow up that big win at Norwalk with a 44-40 home loss to Trumbull three days later.
The conference season is at the midway point now.
As of the games completed through Saturday, Jan. 25, Staples was in first place with an 8-1 FCIAC record, Norwalk (7-1) was alone in second place, Danbury, Stamford and Trumbull were in a three-way tie for third place at 6-2, St. Joseph and Greenwich were both 6-3, Darien and Ridgefield were tied for eighth place at 5-4, while Wilton and Fairfield Warde each had 4-4 records.
The top eight teams qualify for the 2019-20 FCIAC Girls Basketball Tournament which commences Feb. 22 with four quarterfinal games at Staples High School.
There are several big games relating to the FCIAC playoff race occurring this week and next week and Norwalk is involved in a pair of the season’s most pivotal games this week.
Among those big upcoming games featuring matchups of the conference’s leading teams over the course of these next two weeks: Norwalk was scheduled to host Greenwich on Jan. 27 and then three nights later Norwalk’s Bears travel to play Trumbull on Jan. 30; St. Joseph was set to host Stamford on Jan. 27; Danbury visits Greenwich on Feb. 3; Norwalk travels to Danbury and Staples hosts Stamford on Feb. 6; and Trumbull hosts St. Joseph in the hometown rivalry game on Feb. 7.