St. Viator clamps down on defense to top York

St. Viator's girls basketball team never led in the first half of Tuesday's nonconference game against visiting York at the Cahill Gymnasium.

After two baskets by senior Olivia Solimene to start the third quarter, the Lions never trailed in the second half.

Stingy team defense and the playmaking skills of Solimene helped St. Viator overcome a 10-2 opening quarter deficit to prevail 32-21 over the Dukes (14-6).

Senior Myia Clark led St. Viator (11-6) with 13 points and Solimene scored all 8 of her points in the final two quarters while finishing with 4 assists, 6 rebounds and a blocked shot.

"Early in the game, we had number of our players who were kind of pressing, trying to do too much," said St. Viator coach Jason Raymond. "And Olivia was one of them. But she settled down offensively and she just kept playing hard.

"She is a playmaker for us. She has the ability to change the course of a game through her playmaking both on defensive and offensive end. And I think that's what she did in the second half."

The 5-foot-5 DePauw recruit flipped a perfect behind-the-back pass to classmate Maddie Fitzpatrick, who finished the fastbreak layup that gave Viator its biggest lead of the game (20-13) until the final minute.

Solimene then came up with a blocked shot at the other end of the floor, exemplifying the overall team defensive effort by the Lions.

Senior guard Michaela Mueller, who had Viator's only basket win the first quarter, finished with 4 assists, 2 rebounds and 1 steal while Clark had 6 rebounds and 2 steals.

"As you can tell by the score at half (13-10 in favor of York), we struggled offensively in the first half," Solimene said. "But in the second half we played our hearts out on defense a that's what won the game for us.

"Offense wasn't there for us in the beginning but it was coming to us, and I'm glad we were patient with the basketball in the second half."

York was able to get back to within 25-21 on senior Danielle Dennis' driving layup with 4:37 left in the game.

But Viator did not allow another point and the Lions pulled away with 4 free throws by Solimene, a rebound layup by Clark and free throw from Mueller.

"The key was to get through their press because they're very long," Clark said of the Dukes' height. "They like to cut to the ball so defensively, we had to go to the ball."

"Our defense has been steadily improving the last couple of weeks," said Raymond, whose team also got key baskets from seniors Haley Robinson and Grace Sexton. "That has been a focus in practice. We knew York had the ability to score a lot of points. We knew they were very talented and we knew about their record.

"I'm proud of our girls with the way they came out and executed our defensive game plan. I thought we made it difficult for them to get open looks. We contested most of their shots."

Dennis made the most shots for York, converting 4 baskets (one 3-pointer) and 2 free throws.

"This is the worst we've played this season," said York coach Brandon Collings. "We missed 10 to 12 layups. Instead of 10-2 right away, we should have been up 20-2. We were just missing layups all over and then it started getting in our heads and we couldn't finish."

Junior Kathleen Levins came off the bench to finish as the Dukes' second-leading scorer with 5 points. Madison Stark hit a 3-pointer in the second quarter and Madison Park also had a first-quarter field goal for the visitors.

"I thought Lauren Viola did a good job on No. 1 (Clark) most of the game," Collins added. "St. Viator played well. They did what they needed to do to win. They out-played us, out-worked us and out-hustled us. They did everything better than us tonight. All the credit goes to them for sure."

Clark's 13 points left her just 8 points shy of becoming the Lion's all-time leading scorer. Denise Walker, a 1996 graduate and current freshman coach, holds the record with 1,523 points.

"Myia was one of those players who pressed in the first half scoring-wise," Raymond said. "And that's typically not like her. She is very unselfish with the basketball. But she settled into the game in the second half and made a few plays."

Clark's next chance at the program scoring record will be on Thursday at Marian Central Catholic in Woodstock.