Foley at her seasonal best as Warren edges Carmel

'Tis the season — for Rebekah Foley.

Warren coach John Stanczykiewicz pointed it out. It was last year at this time when he noted Foley, a junior, was stepping up and becoming a scorer for his team at the annual Blue Devils Classic girls basketball tourney.

Foley scored 13 points and grabbed 6 rebounds as Warren (5-7) held off Carmel's late charge 41-38 late Saturday afternoon in the opening round of the Warren Tournament.

Actually, if the game had lasted a few more seconds it might have gone to overtime. That's because Carmel senior Alexa Amato was just getting warmed up. Her first 3-pointer cut the Warren lead to 39-35 with under a minute to play. Her second came from the half court line and swished again as the buzzer went off.

“She's a good shooter,'' said Carmel coach Kelly Perz.

Generally, the shooting was off on both sides and made for a close game all the way through.

“We like this tournament,'' Foley said. “We like playing at home. However, we had a lot of open shots and they weren't going in.”

The teams combined to miss 85 shots.

“We played OK,'' Stanczykiewicz said. “We had enough shots.”

Some of the credit for the poor shooting goes to both teams' defensive efforts. The best defensive play of the game came courtesy of Warren junior Kiara Mabien. A Warren pass was destined for the sideline. A Carmel player watched it as it appeared to go out of bounds — before out of nowhere came Mabien, who tracked down the ball at the last minute and fired it off the Carmel player to keep the ball for her team.

“She's got crazy speed,'' Stanczykiewicz said. “That's Kiara for you. She's a great teammate.”

Carmel had some defensive stops as well. Carmel 5-foot-9 junior Daija Pruitt was credited with a stunning 15 rebounds.

It was 9-9 after the first quarter and 19-19 at halftime before Warren took a 26-25 leading heading to the fourth quarter.

Warren's budding star Kaylen Dickson was also bitten by the poor shooting bug early and left the game with an injury. She returned to the game in the fourth quarter and scored 6 of her 10 points.

Warren sophomore Jordyn Hughes nailed three 3-pointers and finished with 12 points.

“We are just beginning to play as a team,'' Hughes said. “It's a good group of girls and we have good team chemistry.”

Perz was pleased with her team's efforts but again wasn't happy with the shooting by her club.

“It was sloppy,'' Perz said. “And we played great yesterday. Our offense just wasn't clicking.”

Hughes helped out with 6 rebounds, and Dickson led both teams with 5 steals.

Carmel senior Danielle Delozier scored 7 points for the Corsairs, and Pruitt checked in with 6 points.

Carmel plays again on Monday when the Corsairs play Deerfield (at 3 p.m.). Larkin will meet Warren in the last game of the afternoon (at 4:30 p.m.).