With warmer temperatures covering Northeast Ohio, something had to be cooler somewhere, and as the Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin Lions hosted their rivals, the Lake Catholic Cougars, that something getting cooler proved to be the areas over the baskets.
Game photos click here.
With warmer temperatures covering Northeast Ohio, something had to be cooler somewhere, and as the Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin Lions hosted their rivals, the Lake Catholic Cougars, that something getting cooler proved to be the areas over the baskets.
After a long battle Jan. 17, the Cougars got a put-back from Ava Budrys Rini with three seconds to play to claim a hard-earned 35-34 victory over the host Lions.
Featuring seven tie scores and six lead changes, with the Lions having the upper hand most of the night despite being limited by early foul issues from post player Emma Slayton, the guard play led the Lions most of the way, especially on defense.
Despite Slayton being limited in floor time, the Lions pressure defense denied inside ball movement by the Cougars to their pair of twin towers in the middle, Carmella Sowers and Budrys Rini.
The trio of Lion guards, Mia Trusso, Brynn Munn, and Lexie Simon, denying passes to the paint held the Cougar duo to a single basket in the first half, and NDCL (6-7) took a tenuous 19-15 halftime lead.
The Lions also dominated the backboards in the first half, by a 12-3 margin. Lila Baeslach was a force inside, while the trio of guards did the dirty work out front.
Finally, midway through the third period, Emma Surbey broke a 21-21 tie with her only basket of the night, a long 3-pointer from above the top of the key on the right side, for a 24-21 NDCL lead.
While not dropping often for either team, the Lions did take the largest lead of the game, at 33-27, with 3:47 left, on a sweet give-and-go bucket from Baeslach to Coco Cochran. From that point on, Sowers established herself in desperate fashion, and the only answer the Lions had was a free throw from Clayton with 40.9 seconds left in the game.
Meanwhile, behind the nine second-half points of Sowers, the Cougars stayed close enough to get to the final seconds of the contest.
Down by three after Clayton’s free throw, Avery Budrys Rini put in her own miss with 22.3 ticks left to cut the gap to 34-33.
After an exchange of turnovers in the final seconds, the Cougars missed a shot, but Ava Budrys Rini was on the spot with three seconds left for the put-back that won the game.
After a timeout from NDCL Head Coach Pete DeMichele, a long inbounds pass from the Lions went too far downcourt, the Cougars snared control, and what looked like a sure loss earlier ended on the right side for the girls in green.
“We’re developing daily as a team,” Coach DeMichele said. “We basically are in the second year of a two-year plan to build our team around solid rebounding and defense, and although it’s going well, we still have some down moments. It’s tough to lose to your biggest rival like we did tonight. I thought we played some really good basketball, but our free throw shooting was terrible and we’re much better from the floor. We struggle when we are not shooting well, and tonight was one of those nights.”
Avery Budrys Rini kept the Cougars in the game in the first half with nine of her game-high 15 points as the Lions defense made Sowers and Ava Budrys Rini non-factors. That changed in the second half to the final finish.
Eight of the nine NDCL players scored, but with only 27.2 percent going in from the floor and an eight-of-22 performance from the foul line, the best NDCL could offer in points was Coco Cochran, a freshman with superb court awareness on full display, and senior forward Baeslach, each putting home nine points.
The rebounding dominance was led by Baeslach, who snared nine of her 15 rebounds in the first half, but in those last few seconds of the game, it all slipped away for NDCL.
