Ottawa handles Rosary
Rosary would have liked to forget the second quarter Friday night. Unfortunately for the Royals, the third quarter was not much better.
With four-year starting point guard Quincy Kellett out of town at a club soccer tournament and fellow senior Megan Conlin still not completely recovered from a season-ending knee injury last year, Rosary was limited to a lone field goal in the two middle quarters.
Ottawa easily advanced to the championship of the Hoops Happening Girls Basketball Thanksgiving Tournament with a 44-18 win at IMSA.
The Pirates(3-0) held Rosary to 5 points in the second and third quarters.
"(Kellett)would love to be here," Rosary coach Jessie Terrell said. "It will only make us stronger (playing without Kellett)."
Ottawa senior Jill Wignes not only scored 7 consecutive first-quarter points to establish the Pirates' superior position; the guard ended up single-handedly outscoring Rosary with her game-high total of 19 points.
"We had really good help defense," Wignes said of Ottawa forcing Rosary to miss 29 of its 37 field-goal attempts. "Our mentality (offensively) was to take good shots."
Freshman Krystal Cortes' consecutive field goals - a conventional deuce and the Royals' only 3-pointer of the contest - late in the first quarter was the offensive highlight of the night for Rosary.
Taylor Drozdowski had the Royals' only other field goal in the first quarter, which ended with Ottawa leading 13-7. But the second quarter was nightmarish for Rosary.
Rosary went exactly seven minutes without scoring a point until Drozdowski hit a short baseline jumper.
"A lot of basketball is making adjustments," Terrell said. "Good teams are going to take away certain things. Because we're young, the adjustments we were trying to make we didn't execute."
Staring at a 23-9 deficit entering halftime, Rosary (2-1) continued to struggle from the field. Both teams did, actually, to start the third quarter. Neither team scored for four and a half minutes, and Rosary did not reach double digits until Conlin split two free throws - the only foul shots Rosary attempted - later in the quarter.
"It's been pretty much a year since I have played," said Conlin, who was lost to a torn ACL last season. "I'm not up to par. It's tough for me. It's tough for the team."
Conlin returned to practice two weeks ago.
Anna Montalbano broke the Rosary field-goal drought in the third quarter. Cortes, Sonja Popovich and Priscilla Betzelos scored the Royals' 3 fourth-quarter field goals.
"We have a lot of underclassmen, and right now it's really hard," Terrell said of the Royals' ability to compete without Kellett.