Girls Basketball: Ashton Millender keys Marian Catholic upset of Fenwick

Updated: February 11, 2012 7:28PM

The last thing that an expectant mother like Marian Catholic coach Annie Byrne needs is too much excitement. But apparently, her team likes to keep her on edge.

“If we made half of our layups, we win by 30,” said Byrne shortly after her team defeated No. 13 Fenwick 62-48 in both teams’ East Suburban Catholic Conference finale Saturday in Oak Park.

“They just like to keep me nervous on the sidelines,” she joked. “They want to make sure I’m not too comfortable.”

Both teams had trouble finding the basket Saturday, but No. 25 Marian Catholic (19-11, 7-2) was able to convert a number of turnovers and fastbreaks into easy layups to emerge with a victory that assured the Spartans a third-place finish in the league standings.

Sophomore Ashton Millender led Marian Catholic with 24 points, including a crucial three-pointer late in the third quarter that gave the visitors a 39-29 lead after Fenwick (20-9, 6-3) had trimmed a 26-14 deficit to 32-28.

“We wanted to come out strong in the first and third quarters,” said Millender, who scored 17 of her points in the second half. “We talked about not getting discouraged and keep playing hard, keep playing hard and keep attacking.”

Freshman Teniya Page had nine points and junior Megan Walsh added six points and nine rebounds for Marian Catholic, which extended the lead to as many as 18 points in the fourth quarter at 49-31.

“I think we’re just young and just learning how to mentally come and play the game down the stretch,” Byrne said. “Every experience for us has been new. Today, they came ready to play and they came determined. They played tough and they played hard.

“When Fenwick made its run, we didn’t panic,” she added. “I think we showed great composure. They’re a young group, they’re good kids and they don’t want to disappoint you. They don’t want to do the wrong thing.

“When they do at times, they put their heads down,” Byrne said. “They didn’t do that today. They did a nice job.”

Sophomore Jade Owens led Fenwick with 15 points and Meredith Boardman added 14 points and 11 rebounds, but the Friars were just 4 of 33 from the field in the first half while digging a 23-14 halftime hole.

“After such a horrendous first half and expending so much energy to get back up to the top of the hill, we just kind of ran out of gas at the end,” Fenwick coach Dave Power said. “We shot so poorly. We had a lot of point-blank shots, a lot of wide-open looks, we just could not hit them.

“I thought we did rush things early and played tight, but in the second half we calmed down,” he added. “We were in perfect position in the third quarter, then we make a couple of turnovers, which has been a problem for us, live turnovers that they converted for layups.”

© 2012 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.