McAuley overwhelms rival Marist

Marist's Randyll Butler (34) and Erin Kelly (24) surround Mother McAuley's Lauren Kleist.
(Art Vassy/SouthtownStar)

Font Size

Email

Bookmark

Black Text

White Text

It's not often that a "Battle of Mount Greenwood" between Mother McAuley and Marist ends with both teams feeling more good than bad about the result.

That was pretty much the case, though, after host Mother McAuley's 61-48 nonconference victory Tuesday night.

The Mighty Macs beat Marist for the first time since Marist's first year as a varsity team in 2002-03.

"My sister (Jessica) was a freshman," Mother McAuley senior guard Sarah Garcia said. "We came into the game this year knowing we were the better team. We wanted to get it done."

Marist? The inexperienced RedHawks, who came into the game as a pretty significant underdog, played like it in the first half. But they bounced back from as much as a 21-point deficit to get to within eight points in the fourth period.

"We really came out and played hard in the second half," junior guard Haley Stercic said. "We were determined to fight to the end and we got pretty close."

Garcia finished with 12 points, Lauren Kleist and Jennifer Moriarty 11 each and Mary Stasaitis nine for Mother McAuley (12-4).

For Marist (6-6), Stercic had 11 points, Cailee Corcoran 10 and Jena Gust eight.

Marist went at Mother McAuley with a man-to-man defense with disastrous results. The Mighty Macs used crisp passing by Garcia, Moriarty and Stasaitis to score several easy baskets and race to a 14-6 first-quarter lead.

"We play better man-to-man, box out better, when everybody has a certain assignment," Marist coach Mary Pat Connolly said. "We've been trying to get better at it and decided if it didn't work we'd go to a 2-3 zone."

The zone defense would eventually kick in, but not until the Mighty Macs opened up a 34-16 halftime lead.

The second half was an entirely different ballgame.

Mother McAuley was no longer able to penetrate to the basket effectively against the zone, but was able to maintain a double-digit lead thanks to a pair of 3-pointers each by Kleist and Garcia.

Gust, meanwhile, came off the bench for Marist to hit a pair of 3-pointers herself, and Corcoran worked hard underneath the net to get three baskets.

Down 51-37 after three periods, Marist got as close as 56-48 with 1:20 remaining after a putback by Teagan Walsh. Mother McAuley, which made just one field goal in the fourth quarter, put the game away when Stasaitis hit 5 of 6 free throws in the final 49.8 seconds.