Girls Basketball: Trinity flies past St Ignatius

Updated: February 1, 2012 7:41PM

Some coaches might panic with their team clinging to a 3-2 late in the first quarter, their opponent playing a junk defense while content to spread the floor on offense and slow the game to a crawl.

Not Trinity’s Ed Stritzel.

“I looked at our coaching staff and said, ‘Yes,’” he said. “We’ve been preparing for it all season. We’ve been talking about it. Sometimes when your opponent plays a box-and-one, some coaches get frustrated and some teams get frustrated. We’ve prepared for it. It’s been in a back pocket.”

Although St. Ignatius successfully limited Megan Podkowa to just four points until the final two minutes, Mikayla Leyden hit a pair of three-pointers in the second quarter as part of a 14-2 run and Taylor Nazon scored nine of her game-high 14 points in the third quarter to lead No. 3 Trinity (24-1) to a 48-27 victory at the 37th annual Girls Catholic Athletic Conference tournament at Trinity.

Nazon accounted for all of Trinity’s points in the third quarter, all nine coming after St. Ignatius (17-9) closed to within 23-19 on a three-pointer by Gena Lenti and a jumper by Gabby Ortiz.

“I think we started off a little tight,” Nazon said. “We knew they would do something. But I think our team came through and showed our versatility. We almost hit our offensive average even without Megan getting her usual points.”

Nazon admitted St. Ignatius’ slowdown tactics wore on her in the first half.

“I got a little frustrated in the first half when I didn’t do as well as I wanted to,” she said. “I knew we needed to be aggressive and we needed to come our really strong in the second half, so I came out really focused and things went my way.”

Nazon converted a rebound to give Trinity a 25-19 lead, then converted two steals sandwiched around a free throw and suddenly the hosts led 30-19.

“That’s the thing,” Stritzel said. “When teams use what I call ‘garbage’ defense on you, you’ve got to have other kids step up. Maybe a couple, two, three years ago we didn’t have the complementary players we have now. Taylor played outstanding.”

Senior center Kelly Nickele had 12 points, Kelley McInerney hit a pair of three-pointers and Lenti finished with five points for St. Ignatius, which will play Mother McAuley (16-10) in the third-place game at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday at Trinity.

“Our whole game was to slow them down and not give them as many looks on the offensive end,” St. Ignatius coach Angie Brown said. “I thought we did a great job. The girls did everything I asked of them, but we needed to hit a few shots to cut the lead down and we couldn’t hit them.

“We only really had one day to prepare for them,” the coach added about employing a box-and-one defense. “Half the time I thought the girls were looking at me and asking, ‘What do you want me to do?’ It’s a lot easier to say than to do.”

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