ST MARYS — Offense was in short supply, but defense came in abundance.
The game was 9-5 in St. Marys’ favor after the first quarter ended and just 20-15 at half. A wooden fence around the paint would have been less effective than the shot-blocking and aggression both sides showed underneath.
But St. Marys took a lead early on and, despite a strong push from Elk County Catholic in the fourth quarter, the Lady Dutch held on to win, 39-36, and take home the Elk County Holiday girls basketball tournament championship. The gravity of the game was not lost on St Marys head coach Michael Franciscus.
“Holiday tournament, playing (the) cross-town rival, sellout (crowd), they love it, I love it, the coaching staff worked so hard, the girls worked so hard,” said Franciscus. “They practice so hard every day. They get better every day. So proud of the way we played.”
St Marys took a 27-19 lead going into the final quarter, but ECC refused to give up, and its offense found a rhythm. Sami Straub, who led ECC in points, had six in the period.
Straub found her shooting touch, taking a single step inside the arc before sinking her shots. The outside shooting helped open up the paint for other players. Syd Alexander had five points in the fourth and attacked the rim.
Lucy Klawhun banged a massive 3-pointer. With just 1:20 left on the clock and ECC down 34-29, Klawhun sank one from downtown to bring the game within one possession. Olivia Eckels got a big layup for St Marys on the ensuing play to make the game 36-32 in her team’s favor.
ECC was forced to foul with little time left and St Marys didn’t let the game slip away, going 8-of-12 from the line in the final period. Klawhun hit one more huge 3-pointer with just 3.1 seconds left on the clock to make the score 39-36 and give ECC a chance. But, St Marys was able to inbound the ball and the clock ran down to crown the Lady Dutch tournament champions.
While the Lady Crusaders did a great job fighting back in the game, they also had hurt themselves early on.
“We started off really slow,” said head coach Ken Pistner. “We got a 10-point deficit right off the bat. It was a two-point game in the fourth quarter; turnovers were the key tonight. Unforced turnovers, we had a lot of those.”
Both teams played well on defense, but St Marys’ ability to prevent the Lady Crusaders from getting easy layups was a big reason for their success.
“We did our job keeping them out of the paint,” Franciscus said. “We boxed out well for the most part… At the end of the day, ECC had to make shots to keep themselves in the game and they did. It threw us off, Straub had a really good game… At the end of the day, we did what we wanted to do, protect the ball.”
Elk County Catholic won’t let this loss get them down; they wouldn’t have time for that to happen, anyway.
Pistner said practice is at nine a.m. today. As for St Marys, they know what the tournament means to the community and are hoping it will help them in the second half of the season.
“It means a lot,” said Franciscus. “ECC is a great team and they’re very well coached and they have very fundamentally sound players and they have very talented players and we wanted to make sure we came out and played our best game against them and we did. We played with great energy, I’m really proud of our girls. I could not be more proud of our team.
“We’re gonna take this and run with it.”
AT ST MARYS
Elk County Catholic (39)
Straub 5 2-2 12, Alexander 3 1-2 8, Klawhun 2 0-0 6, Newton 2 0-0 5, Mourer 2 1-2 5 Totals: 14 4-6 36
St Marys (36)
Snelick 3 7-9 14, Caskey 2 2-2 8, I. Caskey 3 0-0 6, Catalone 3 0-2 6, Anthony 1 1-2 3, Eckels 1 1-4 3 Totals: 13 11-19 39
Elk County Catholic 5 15 19 36
St Marys 9 20 26 39
Three-point goals: ECC 4 (Klawhun 2, Alexander, Newton), St M 3 (Caskey 2, Snelick); Total fouls: ECC 15, St M 13; fouled out: None
