Huskies make Sweet 16 for 16th consecutive season

Montgomery's 25 points led UConn to an 87-59 win over Florida in a second-round NCAA Tournament game on March 24, 2009. Photo © by Vito J. Leo for HTNP.com

STORRS — Senior point guard Renee Montgomery saved the best for last, turning in her best-ever NCAA Tournament performance in her final game at Gampel Pavilion.

Montgomery’s 25 points led top-seeded UConn to an 87-59 win over Florida in a second-round NCAA Tournament game in front of a packed house at Gampel Pavilion Tuesday night. [March 24]

The women earn a berth in the Sweet 16 for the 16th consecutive season, taking on 4th-seeded California in a regional contest at Trenton, NJ this Sunday.

When Renee wasn’t hitting one of her 5  three-pointers, she was slashing through the toothless Gator defense, getting to the line 10 times.

The Huskies’ floor leader said she often feeds off the energy of the friendly home crowd.

“It means a lot to hear the fans cheering for us, especially the student section which has been getting bigger and bigger each year since my freshman season,” she said. “The UConn fans make you feel special to play here. One Vermont player came up to me [during Sunday's first-round game] and said, ‘Your fans here are awesome.’”

Benched!

Montgomery knew going into the game that she would be pitted against her mirror image in the person of Florida’s versatile floor general Sha Brooks, but that scenario failed to develop due to early foul trouble by the Gators’ leader, who ended up playing only four minutes during the entire first half.

With 12:42 to play in the first half, Florida seemingly had – if not the answer, at least an answer – for staying close to UConn, trailing only 12-7. But suddenly the question changed, quickly morphing into whether the Gators could sustain their early-on efforts, now that their best player was unceremoniously relegated to the bench with her third personal foul – and more than three quarters to play.

The answer was a resounding “No!”

Over the next eight minutes of play, the Huskies extended their lead to 39-20, when Tina Charles laid in an “and-one” to punctuate a possession that featured fully four offensive rebounds by UConn.

More good stuff from Tina Charles

“Offensive rebounds are so important, they just get our confidence going,” said Maya Moore, who had 22 points – a total matched by Charles, who turned in her second strong game of the tournament.

“I’ve been saying all along that if Tina Charles plays like the best player in the country, no one is going to beat us,” said head coach Geno Auriemma. “And so far, we’re 2-0 with her playing like that.”

Auriemma had warned his players that Florida “was a very physical team” and Montgomery credits some coaching tips for helping her get Brooks into potentially game-changing foul trouble very early on.

“The coaching staff said she [Brooks] likes to be aggressive on offense and if I needed to, I should take a step back and let her come to me,” said Montgomery.

That strategy paid off with a couple of quick charging fouls against the Florida floor leader, who then had no choice but to try to cheer on her team from the bench for most of the first half.

Florida coach Amanda Butler called the early fouls on her star player “frustrating.”

“That certainly diminished our chances,” she said.

The Gators probably would have preferred battling a swamp full of crocodiles rather than taking on the Huskies in Storrs.

UConn women set the standard

“This was a very tough draw for us, very challenging,” Butler said. “But then it’s a great experience to play against the team that sets the standard for women’s basketball.”

Coach Geno Auriema has been named Coach of the Year by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association. Photo © by Vito J. Leo for HTNP.com

With the Huskies idle while awaiting play in the Trenton Regional, perhaps Coach Geno Auriemma will allow himself a few minutes to sit back and enjoy his second consecutive Coach of the Year award from the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association.

Auriemma is the only Division I head coach to receive this award two years in a row.

“Anytime that happens, you feel you must be doing something this year that is pretty significant,” said the Hall-of-Fame coach who has his 35-0 team on the verge of greatness.

He credited his coaching staff (Chris Dailey, Jamelle Elliott and Shea Ralph) who, having gained experience and maturity on the job, now are more willing to offer suggestions and innovations that all funnel into the collective success of the team.

“As the staff gets older, they feel freer to express their feelings and I think that’s why we’ve become a better team,” Auriemma said.

Posted March 25, 2009

Mansfield prison fence topped with razor wire

Razor wire already is installed over the tops of gates at the Bergin Correctional Institution. Now it will run along the top and bottom of the entire perimeter fence. Photo © HTNP.com

People driving along Route 44 in Mansfield this afternoon may have wondered what was being delivered to the Bergin Correctional Institution in a big truck.  Inside the boxes being unloaded from the truck was a new shipment of razor wire.

The minimum-security prison currently has a row of razor wire – also known as razor ribbon – circling the base of the compound’s perimeter fence.  This new shipment will be installed along the top of the fence.

“This is the final phase of a security enhancement initiated some time ago, but because of budget issues, we were put at the end of the list,” Deputy Warden of Operations James Foley said today.

New razor wire being installed on March 25. Photo © HTNP.com

He noted that the prison – which currently houses 1,082 inmates – needs additional razor wire to keep potential escapees from gaining access to the fence. “It is easy to defeat a single row of razor wire at the bottom,” he said.

“And we don’t have the same amount of personnel” as similar institutions, Foley said.

There have been no escapes from the prison in at least the past two years, he said.

Unfinished project

The subject of adding more razor wire to the prison fence was originally raised in January 2006.  At that time, the Town Council passed a motion to support the state Department of Transportation’s plans to install a double row of “razor ribbon” – on the ground – along the interior of the fence.

The project was budgeted for $69,000, to be paid from the Department of Correction’s budget.

However, the DOC installed only one layer of razor ribbon at that time.

And so the question came back to the Town Council at its July 23, 2007 meeting.

Map of prison indicating perimeter fence.

In a July 18 memo to the council, Town Manager Matt Hart noted that adding the razor wire would not change the classification of the prison – something that had concerned town leaders and residents in the past.

“The demographics of the inmate population at Bergin Correctional Institution are not changing. This is an improvement meant to enhance public safety, to assist the Bergin staff in doing their jobs, and to maintain the integrity of Bergin’s re-entry mission,” Hart’s memo states.

Changes since 1989

The Bergin Correctional Institution is what’s known as a pre-release center. It’s a minimum-security or Level 2 facility whose purpose is to transition inmates who are coming to the end of their sentence back into the community.

When the prison first opened on March 13, 1989 – in buildings that previously served the Mansfield Training School – it was known as the Northeast Correctional Institution.

Its original population was 248 male inmates. The original agreement with the town was to cap the population at 350 inmates, and to not include those serving sentences for sexual crimes.

In 1997, under a reorganization and consolidation program, the prison was closed but it reopened two years later, in February 1999 because of prison overcrowding. At that time, it housed 500 inmates.

In January of 2001, after an expanded facility was constructed, the inmate population increased to an average of 650 inmates.  And on Feb. 3, 2001 the name was officially changed to the Donald T. Bergin Correctional Institution.

Boxes of razor wire waiting to be unpacked and installed. Photo © HTNP.com

On July 18, the town’s Public Safety Committee – which serves as a liaison with the prison – voted unanimously to support a new request from the DOC to place that second stretch of razor wire along the top of the perimeter fence and a fence surrounding a baseball field.

The Town Council then approved that plan at its July 23, 2007 meeting.

Posted March 25, 2009