Rosary grinds out fourth straight win

Updated: March 23, 2011 9:28AM

Is it better to win ugly or lose pretty?

"We'll take the win," said Rosary coach Dave Beebe, after the Royals basketball team suffered through an error-prone, foul-ridden 31-21 Suburban Christian Conference Blue victory over visiting Immaculate Conception in a make-up from last Tuesday's blizzard postponement.

It was Rosary's fourth win in a row, but it didn't come easy.

"I.C. always has that effect on us, I don't know why," Beebe said. "They like to slow the game down. ... It wasn't pretty, but we'll take it, a 10-point win. Four in a row now, wrapped up third place in the conference. We'll take that."

Make no mistake, this was an ugly game.

The teams combined for 52 turnovers and together made just 18-of-47 free throws.

The Knights (14-14, 2-8) made only six field goals and scored just eight points in the first half.

Rosary wasn't much better, but did just enough in the first two quarters to build an eight-point edge, which held long enough for the Royals (10-14, 6-4) to pick up the win.

"It was ugly," Knights coach Aubree Lawrence said. "Both teams are very scrappy and very aggressive and the officials were letting them play like that, which was okay by me. ... We did some good things, but we turned the basketball over. That's what we do. But we also get a lot of steals. When things work out in our favor, they even each other out, but we didn't hit foul shots tonight."

The Knights were 7-of-16 at the line and were unable to score points despite out rebounding the Royals 34-27, of which at least half came on the offensive end.

Rosary made a more concerted effort in the second half to rebound and used senior Brenda Rocha's energy to its advantage.

"I like that role," said Rocha, who scored a game-high 10 points and hustled to seven rebounds. "Even if it's just talking to people. Once you pick someone else up, they pick someone else up. It's kind of a domino effect. Just giving them encouragement helps a lot, too."

Breann Maryanski scored six points and added six points for the Royals, while Courtney Bila also scored six-- higher point totals than anyone on the Knights.

The win, regardless of quality, is a nice early-week pick-me-up with senior night tonight before turning eyes towards the playoffs. Four wins in a row and third place is a good taste in the teams' collective mouth following an early-season swoon.

"It feels awesome," Rocha said. "After the rocky start in the beginning, it feels great to get these wins at the end of the regular season."

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