Using its defensive efforts to grab a 58-31 win, Owensboro Catholic defeated a young Lady Devils team to advance to the 9th District Championship.
It was a slow start for both teams, but the Lady Aces were able to grind their way to an 8-2 lead with a lack of perimeter shooting in the first quarter. Owensboro Catholic’s lead grew to 10-4 following the buzzer, as freshman Aubrey Randolph was fouled and hit one of two at the charity stripe.
Freshman Karmin Riley and sophomore Hailee Johnson helped get the Lady Aces going in the second, combining for 10 of the team’s points. Riley connected for a three and a floater to give Owensboro Catholic a 22-8 lead with 2:36 left in the second quarter, before ultimately taking a 24-11 lead at halftime.
Both teams came out of the locker room playing aggressively and trading buckets, with the Lady Aces still in charge at 29-15 with 6:20 left in the third quarter. With Owensboro trying to claw its way back into the game, Owensboro Catholic started connecting from the perimeter.
The Lady Aces rattled off four threes, closing out the quarter on a 18-6 run to take a 47-22 lead going into the fourth.
The fourth quarter was much of the same for the Lady Devils, as they weren’t able to slow Owensboro Catholic down. The Lady Aces cracked double figures one last time with Johnson tallying five points of the team’s 11 points in the quarter.
Along with its offensive attack, Owensboro Catholic was able to limit Owensboro to single digits for the third quarter on the night en route to the 58-31 win.
Head Coach Jansen Locher felt like the Lady Devils got off to a solid start, but that some missed shots led to their downfall against one of the best teams in the region in their eyes.
“We got the shots we wanted, we just couldn’t get them to fall early and we got down on ourselves,” Locher said. “Then it kind of led to a lot of other things, but hats off to Catholic.”
A big key to the Lady Aces success was limiting sophomore A’Lyrica Hughes to four points, as junior Lindsey Gibson was the Lady Devils leading scorer with nine points.
Owensboro had managed to stay relatively close until halfway through the third thanks to their offensive rebounding advantage, they just couldn’t convert enough on those chances.
“We had some putbacks that we made, but we have to create more points off of offensive rebounds,” Locher said. “We get a lot of offensive rebounds, we just have to get more points off of it. But, we’re gonna fight. We know that we may not have the talent all the way through, but we know we can control games with our hustle and our effort and I thought we did that for the most part.”
Johnson led all scorers with 17 points on the night for Owensboro Catholic, while junior Katie Riney (12), Riley (10) and junior Maddie Hayden (10) all finished in double figures.
Head Coach Michael Robertson was pleased with Owensboro Catholic as they began to find their groove offensively in the third quarter, but wants the defensive intensity to pick up in the coming games.
“We started to hit shots there in the third quarter and really started pulling away,” Robertson said. “We’re starting to get back there and we’re starting to see the ball going through the basket. The big thing is we have to continue to play hard. We were lackadaisical in the second half defensively, allowing a lot of straight line drives in our zone.”
The win sends Owensboro Catholic (24-9) to the 9th District Championship, in which they will take on Apollo for the third time this season. The Lady Aces won both of the regular season matchups, winning by scores of 60-54 and 69-56.
Robertson said their battle with the Lady Devils was not easy and expects it to only get tougher in the 9th District Championship, noting that they have one of the toughest districts in the Commonwealth.
“You play 30 games all year and it comes down to one game,” Robertson said. “And we’re in a good district. That game is not a cupcake. That may have been a 20-plus point game, but I’m telling you if it was a super regional or something of that nature, you might see half of the 9th District teams in the quarterfinal.”
While the loss ends Owensboro’s season with a 13-16 overall record, they are holding their heads up knowing that they have young talent that can take this experience and help them thrive in the future.
“We feel like this year we beat teams we were better than and struggled against some teams that are better than us, but we think that we can start competing against the best teams in the region,” Locher said. “You know, it starts tomorrow. Waking up, [thinking] what we can work on to get better each and every day. It can’t be showing up in October ready to go… Our girls are pretty committed. As upset as they were losing the game and the season is over, they’re optimistic about next year, coming in and working harder and that’s all you can ask.”
