Girls Basketball: St Joesph battles past Bishop McNamara

Updated: December 21, 2011 9:50PM

Donna Koerber was not going to let her team lose on her birthday.

The 5-11 senior forward came up with the biggest performance of her career Wednesday night, celebrating her 18th birthday by leading host St. Joseph to a hard-fought 55-44 victory over Bishop McNamara in Westchester.

Koerber led the Chargers (9-2) with 23 points and 18 rebounds, both career highs, as well as five steals.

“Being my birthday, I wanted to win, especially on our home court because we’re undefeated [on it],” Koerber said. “So I was excited.”

Koerber scored 17 of her points in the second half as the Chargers gradually pulled away. Most of her points came on baseline drives or on putbacks.

“We thought she could take baseline at will tonight and she kind of listened to that and did it,” said St. Joseph coach Jim Maley, who wasn’t aware it was Koerber’s birthday. “She’s played for me for four years now so I can think of a few [excellent performances], but this was certainly a nice game.”

The game was anything but nice for the first half, as neither team could buy a basket. St. Joseph’s Briya Wilborn scored the first five points of the contest but after that it was a struggle, as both sides turned the ball over 17 times and shot a combined 27 percent.

The rebounding work of Koerber, who grabbed nine boards before intermission, allowed the Chargers to eke out a 19-14 halftime lead.

“It was big,” Maley said. “Rebounding was one of our emphases tonight. It’s a little bit of our shortfall and we’re working on it and thankfully Donna stepped up.”

McNamara (5-5) tied the game at 28 on a putback by Emily Olszewski with 3:33 left in the third quarter, but the hosts went on a 20-4 run. Koerber and Wilborn, who also had eight rebounds and four steals, accounted for all but two of the points, many of which came in transition.

“That’s one of my specialties is to go baseline and [Maley] said it was open all night and it really was,” Koerber said. “I just didn’t execute as much as I could [in the first half].”

But Koerber helped the Chargers overcome a poor shooting night by grabbing nine offensive boards and shooting 9 of 13 from the floor and 5 of 7 from the line. The hosts won the battle of the boards 42-27.

“I was kind of hoping to, I wouldn’t say inspire, but to pump up my team more so we could play like we did the rest of the game,” Koerber said.

Chanel Brown added eight points and eight boards for St. Joseph, while Maley credited guard Deja Horn, who had two points, with a good defensive effort on McNamara’s Khadaizha Sanders.

Sanders, a 5-6 freshman, poured in a game-high 28 points to go with five steals and three assists. She had 22 of those points in the second half.

“We knew [Sanders] was a very good player so…Deja’s job was to wear her down,” Maley said. “We felt if we wore her down we could do okay and I think that she still scored a bit in the second half but [her] getting in the lane and distributing was down a little in the second half because Deja just picked her up three quarters.”

Indeed, Sanders was forced to do everything offensively as no other Irish player scored more than two baskets. Olszewski, Kiley Weight, Corinne O’Connor and Josie Dexter all had four points for the visitors.

© 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.