Bishop Carroll girls shake off DuBois Central Catholic in 1A
· Yahoo Sports
EBENSBURG, Pa. – Bishop Carroll Catholic overcame a sluggish start and went on to post a 47-30 victory against DuBois Central Catholic in a PIAA Class 1A girls’ basketball playoff game Saturday afternoon at Bishop Carroll Catholic High School.
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The Huskies (24-4), the runners-up from District 6, will take on District 10 champion Farrell in a second-round game Wednesday at a site and time to be announced. The Steelers came away with a 57-45 victory against Sewickley Academy.
“For the first game in a week or so, we’ll take the win, but we’ll go back to the drawing board tomorrow for Wednesday,” Bishop Carroll coach Nick Smith said.
Adelyn Myers, a junior, led all scorers with 20 points. She hit 8 of 10 from the floor and was 3-for-4 at the free-throw line.
“That’s the good thing about our team; when most of our top scoring players aren’t playing the game they usually do, someone else picks up. We don’t rely on one player or a couple of players. We all can do what we have to do to win,” Myers said.
Emily Lucko, the Huskies’ leading scorer, played roughly half of the game. She made good on 6 of 6 free throws as she totaled eight points. Coach Smith said he wanted to dip a bit deeper into the bench and use more substitutes.
“Not having her out there kind of hurt us, but we got through it,” Smith said.
Bishop Carroll built a 23-9 lead despite being outrebounded 15-8 in the first 16 minutes. The Cardinals finished with a 22-21 advantage under the glass.
“I don’t think we shot the ball well enough in the first couple of quarters when we had the opportunity. But I thought we executed perfectly,” DuBois Central coach Jordan Hoover said.
The Huskies used an 11-4 run to build their halftime advantage, however.
“We had a week off (between the District 6 finals and Saturday) and I think it kind of showed. They are a good team playing a great game plan, slowing the game down. We haven’t really seen that this year. It kind of threw us off our offense a little bit,” Smith said.
The Cardinals employed a deliberate offensive approach that Smith said threw off Bishop Carroll.
“They slowed it down. We’re not used to coming way out (on defense). We prefer to play in. So that kind of threw our defense and our press off a little bit. We didn’t look that great tonight. But we did cause some turnovers,” Smith said.
“If you had told me we had a rebounding edge at halftime, I would have thought we had a really good chance of winning the game,” Hoover said.
“Rebounding is definitely one of our weak points. It’s been (the case) since the beginning of the season. It’s something we definitely have to work on, especially when we get to possibly Williamsburg or possibly Bishop Guilfoyle again,” Myers said.
“I thought we rebounded well today. But going forward, we definitely have to play a lot better,” Smith said.
The turnovers proved to make a huge difference for the Huskies, who forced 21 giveaways while committing only six.
“The message was rebounding and limiting our turnovers. If I had any issues, it would have been some of the unforced ones,” Hoover said.
“Extra pressure and better defense and (creating) turnovers definitely helped us take over,” Myers said.
DuBois Catholic drew within nine, 34-25, when Jillian Morgan hit a basket with 1:14 gone in the final period. The Huskies answered with a 7-2 run that restored their double-digit lead. Ella Elensky led the Cardinals with eight points.
Coach Hoover informed the girls at the end of the game that he plans to step down so he can devote more time to his family. Hoover had coached the DuBois Central girls the past three seasons and in 2018-19.