Reported by the Hartford Courant, Northwest Catholic remained undefeated and handed E.O. Smith its first loss of the year with a 41-34 win in the CCC championship tonight.

The Connecticut Sun have selected E.O. Smith as its girls' basketball team of the week for Feb. 1-7.

The Panthers remained undefeated with wins over Rockville, Windham and Rocky Hill last week. E.O. Smith is No. 7 in the latest Register Top 10 poll.

The Class L tournament is filled with a handful of the state’s top teams, and E.O. Smith is proving to be one of them.

The Panthers have a 15-0 mark and may be tested tomorrow night when they host Windham, a team that handed Bacon Academy its first loss of the season last week.

The Panthers have all five starters back from last season, and the experience has been beneficial. E.O. Smith is one of four teams still undefeated, and it is beating opponents by almost 30 points per game.

“I knew we’d be good,” Panthers coach Kirk Murad said. “But maybe not this good.”

Liz Moynihan (13.2 ppg) is the team’s top scorer, but the Panthers have plenty of balance (Kelly Sundberg, 12.5 ppg and Maggie Sundberg, 9.4 ppg), along with a solid bench (Morgan Olander, Ashley Forand and Murphy Murad).

E.O. Smith — a guard-oriented squad that creates havoc defensively and averages over 65 points — appears fit to improve on its second-round loss in the Class L tournament a year ago.

“We understand the Class L landscape is kind of scary this year,” Murad said, “so we don’t want to look too far ahead.”