WILTON — One of the strengths for the Wilton boys basketball team is its 3-point shooting and on Monday night it was no where to be found as the Warriors fell to Danbury, 69-50, an FCIAC game at the Zeoli Field House.

“They pushed up on us and we backed down from it,” Wilton head coach Joel Geriak said.

The Warriors (8-4) hit just one 3-pointer, from Matt Kronenberg, during the first three and half quarters. They then hit three more in the final four and half minutes.

Danbury’s defense came in knowing it had to stop the Warriors’ 3-point shooters.

“That was our focus, to get to the 3-point line,” Danbury head coach Casey Bock said. “I thought their guards did a good job getting into the lane and making shots, but our focus was making sure that all their 3’s were contested.”

The Hatters (11-1) defense forced the Warriors into the lane.

“When teams do that our goal is to get to the hole and the rim and other than Matt Kronenberg, who played a phenomenal game, he carried us for the whole four quarters,” Geriak said. “We had 16 or 17 shots in the first half and he took seven or eight of them and they were all great shots.”

Kronenberg led all scorers with 20 points but it wasn’t enough while leading scorer Jack Williams was held to just nine points.

“Jack forced tonight. He forced,” Geriak said. “They pushed up on him (Williams) a little bit. He’s starting to see that now, which is deservedly so, and that’s why Kronenberg gets some good looks.”

At one point Kronenberg scored 15 straight points for the Warriors.

Right off the tip both teams struggled to score at all. Wilton hit just one field goal at the end of the first quarter and without Tryen McCrea the Hatters would have only scored two points. Thanks to McCrea’s eight points, Danbury would lead by five, 10-5 after the first quarter.

“Our offense comes from our defense so I thought if we got some stops and were able to push in transition that would help us out offensively,” Bock said.

The Hatters did just that, led by senior Scott Nesbitt who scored nine of his team-high 16 points in the second quarter to give Danbury an eight-point lead at halftime, 27-19.

Wilton made it close in the third, cutting the deficit to six points heading in the final quarter, but like they had all game the Warriors would get close to the Hatters but not close enough.

“Offensively, shots didn’t fall that we could have made and we forced a lot of bad shots and that’s a credit to them (Danbury) more than anything else,” Geriak said.

The Hatters outscored the Warriors by 13 points in the fourth quarter as they ran away with their 11th win of the season.

“Everybody (contributed). We go 10 deep and any given night somebody is going to step up and make plays for us,” Bock said. “Keep getting better every day. Every night we are going to have a tough game, we just have to make sure we are focused on getting better every day.”

Danbury travels to Norwalk to play McMahon on Wednesday at 7 p.m., while Wilton goes on the road to play Darien, also on Wednesday at 7 p.m.