ST. MARYS — Prior to Wednesday night’s game, it had been 10 years since the Elk County Catholic Lady Crusaders basketball team won a game in the PIAA state tournament. That all changed Wednesday night as this year’s District 9 champs easily took down the WPIAL’s sixth-seed in Monessen, 52-23, in a first round matchup.
“It all clicked tonight,” ECC head coach Ken Pistner said. “Our inside-out game, we got some easy buckets on the inside and it started opening shots on the outside.
We knew that (Monessen) had two good guards and when you have two good guards, they can make a lot of things happen and can make it tough on you. (Mercedes Majors), she’s been averaging near 20 points a game and we held her to 10 tonight. (Kinsley Wilson) handles the ball a little bit and I thought we did an excellent job on those two.”
In what’s become a hallmark of the Lady Crusaders five sophomore starters this season, the offense can run through anyone at any given time. On Wednesday night, Syd Alexander became the focal point as she scored 24 points — including 8-for-8 at the charity stripe.
While the Lady Greyhounds defense focused on Lucy Klawuhn, Pistner said they took advantage of the matchup against Alexander and she made Monessen pay.
“She had a lot of nice back cuts and the girls really found her,” Pistner said of Alexander. “Going in, we really didn’t anticipate that, but that’s how it worked out.
“I think we have five girls that can score at least 15 a night. That’s the good thing about these girls — they’re very unselfish. Nobody really cares who goes off unless it’s somebody. They’re taking good shots and all of our outside shots were inside-out. We were working the ball and getting good shots. I think the game was played at our pace tonight.”
It was a back-and-forth first quarter, as Monessen took an early lead but the Lady Crusaders went up 10-4 after an Alexander three. But a couple buckets by Mercedes Majors made it just a 10-8 lead for the Lady Crusaders.
Monessen then tied it up at 10-10 early in the second quarter. But from there, it was all ECC (25-3) as the Lady Crusaders didn’t allow another Monessen field goal for that quarter en route to a 26-11 halftime lead.
“We sort of got used to their speed,” Pistner said. “Once you get that, we got a little momentum and turned the first round of a state playoff game into a double-digit lead and we just kept going. All the teams in the state playoffs are good teams so we were really happy to come away with a win tonight. We pride ourselves on defense and we know if the defense shows up every night, we’re going to have a chance.”
“As the year’s gone along, we’re becoming a smarter basketball team — a more experienced basketball team,” Pistner said. “I think we’re really playing our best basketball of the year right now.”
The inside-out game and the defense continued to roll for the Lady Crusaders in the second half as Klawuhn hit a couple threes and Alexander and Tori Newton continued to score underneath for a 40-15 lead after the third quarter.
The Lady Greyhounds started to cut the gap a bit at the start of the fourth quarter with the ECC starters getting a bit of a break. But once they got back in the game, Alexander and company picked right back up where they left off. Alexander in particular did her damage from the charity stripe in the fourth quarter, going 3-for-3.
With the game out of reach for the Lady Greyhounds late, ECC was able to get to its reserves late and they, too, were able to put up some points in a state tournament game.
Caitlyn Vollmer hit a jumper with less than a minute to go. Gabby Weisner also made a free throw and Madi Marzullo was able to score a bucket down low late to set the final score at 52-23. The lone senior on the team — Abby Hasselman — also got in the game late.
“Abby Hasselman played her last home game tonight,” Pistner said. “We were very fortunate to get a home game in the state playoffs. Abby’s meant a lot to the program. She’s a great leader — might not be on the court but off the court she’s a great leader. So it was good to see her have at least one more home game.”
Klawuhn, Newton and Emily Mourer had six points each, while Mourer was excellent on the glass with 10 boards.
The win gave ECC its first state playoff victory since 2011, as that last win was a 53-47 upset as a three-seed over District 5’s top seeded Southern Fulton. Pistner credited Wednesday night’s win to its regular season.
“Our regular season put us in this position,” Pistner said. “We had a good seed in the D-9 tournament and winning that, we get a good seed here.”
Elk County Catholic will then be back in action on Saturday in the second round at a time and location to be determined. The Lady Crusaders’ next matchup will be against the District 7’s three-seed in Union, as they defeated Farrell 42-33.
AT ST. MARYSMonessen—23 Majors 5 0-0 10, Johnson 0 1-6 1, Campbell 1 1-3 3, Wilson 3 0-0 6, Majors 0 1-2 1, Hardison 1 0-0 2. Totals:
Elk County Catholic—52Klawuhn 2 0-0 6, Straub 2 1-2 5, Alexander 7 8-8 24, Newton 2 2-5 6, Mourer 3 0-0 6, Weisner 0 1-2 1, Marzullo 1 0-0 2, Vollmer 1 0-0 2. Totals:
3-pointers: Monessen 0, ECC 4 (Alexander 2, Klawuhn 2).
