Moriarty, Benet stay unbeaten with win over Carmel
Kendall Moriarty had just drawn a foul when she cradled the basketball, hunched over in a lane and needed a good 10 seconds to catch her breath.
The Benet Academy senior guard certainly deserved the respite near the end of her team's 52-44 defeat of host Carmel Catholic on Saturday afternoon.
"I looked toward our bench, and my coach (Joe Kilbride) asked me if I wanted him to call a timeout," the masked, 6-foot Redwing - sitting courtside and smiling with her eyes - said after the hard-fought East Suburban Catholic Conference girls basketball clash. "I told him, 'No. We might need it later.' "
Benet (7-0, 4-0), which led 28-15 at the half and 34-17 early in the third frame, needed Moriarty (8 points, 4 rebounds, 2 steals) in every second of a frenetic 19-second span after a scrappy Carmel (2-7, 1-3) crew had cut the visitors' advantage to 45-36 on senior guard Emma Berg's 3-pointer with 4:10 left in the fourth quarter.
What Moriarty did in the breathless action that covered four possessions: hit the hardwood to force a turnover by poking a loose ball to a teammate; popped right back up and hustled to score at the other end of the court; collected a steal on Carmel's ensuing possession; and sprinted three-quarters of the court before getting fouled.
Moriarty then made 1 of 2 free throws, giving Benet a 50-38 lead - and some breathing room.
"Our team has a bunch of players who hustle," said Moriarty, who admitted she was out of tip-top condition because she had nursed a recent quad injury. "Our hustle created momentum today."
So did their offensive rebounding, particularly during one critical possession early in the fourth quarter. Benet, up 41-34, grabbed four successive offensive boards - 2 by junior guard Margaret Temple, 1 by Moriarty and another by junior center Morgan Demos - before Demos (9 points, 9 rebounds) capped the busy sequence with a putback.
"Benet is the gold standard of our conference," said Carmel coach Ben Berg, whose Corsairs refused to let Benet's sharp shooting from distance (7 treys through a little more than two quarters) deflate them and handled Benet's pressure, including its jump-trap defense. "Our kids played hard and were resilient. We got energy from our bench, and all of them were fully engaged.
"We're getting better; I'm encouraged."
Sophomore guard Lenee Beaumont paced the Redwings with 14 points. Temple tallied 7 points, and senior guard Reagan Rodenbostel (6 points) netted two of Benet's five 3-pointers in the first half.
Junior post player Grace Sullivan and sophomore guard Kyla Smith scored 9 points apiece to lead Carmel. The Corsairs' standout 6-5 sophomore, Jordan Wood, snared a team-high 4 rebounds but was limited to 5 points; foul trouble and Moriarty's defense thwarted one of the ESCC's top players.