IC Catholic steps up for step back to Class 2A
Having played bigger schools all season, IC Catholic Prep was more than ready for the step back to Class 2A girls basketball.
The Knights scored the game's first 13 points and rolled to a 71-28 victory against Westminster Christian on Wednesday night at the Walther Christian regional semifinals at Melrose Park.
"The thing that we've tried to do, as we've tried in the past, is we've tried to play a real competitive schedule coming into the playoffs," IC Catholic assistant coach Jeff Lawrence said. "Coach (Aubree Schuett) and I were talking, we've played one 2A school this year during the regular season. We've played all 3A and 4A schools. It was probably a little lopsided this year, probably a little too many of those kind of games, but I think it prepares us physically and mentally. We see better teams, more physical teams, quicker teams, and it gets us into that mode."
The Knights (16-12) forced 9 turnovers while scoring the first 13 points of the game. By the end of the first quarter, the Knights led 20-6.
"We just wanted to come out strong," Knights senior guard Erin Maloney said. "There have been quite a few games when we didn't really start out as strong. We know how it feels to be down 13-0. We didn't want that to happen (to us)."
"We knew going into it they were a real good team," Westminster coach Fred Versluys said. "...Even though we knew that was the case, the girls walked out and they gave a great effort tonight. Considering our team was just about entirely new, we achieved far more than I could have imagined this year."
IC Catholic led 42-13 at halftime.
"It definitely gives us some confidence with our shots and playing together," Maloney added. "It just gives us the confidence that we can play really well and play against these teams."
Westminster also didn't have the size to match up with Knights post players Anjella Farmer and Claire Gibler.Farmer scored 21 points, Gibler scored 15, and each grabbed 5 rebounds. Senior guard Chiara Gaudio added 13 points.
"We talked about it at halftime, our biggest area of weakness is that they rotated the ball, and then they got inside position, sealed us off and that really hurt us," Versluys said. "Besides some of the turnovers and the fastbreak points they got from their press, their inside game really hurt us because they're bigger, they're stronger and they obviously have played together a lot longer than our girls have because they're freshmen and sophomores."
"When we play teams with smaller people, we definitely see that our strength is down low," Maloney added.
Junior Maddie Versluys led Westminster (11-17) with 19 points.
The Knights meet host Walther Christian in the regional final at 7 p.m. Thursday.
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