Hot-shooting Benet hands York first loss

Defense may win championships, the adage goes, but when you shoot better than 50 percent from the field, you're not going to lose a lot of games.

The nationally ranked Benet girls basketball team faced an interesting nonconference opponent Saturday afternoon in York, which like the Redwings entered the nonconference tilt undefeated. The Dukes have made a name for themselves with the press and trap so far this season, disrupting teams' ability to generate offense.

Benet, however, wasn't one of those teams.

The Redwings shot a scorching 53 percent from the field, including a third quarter that saw senior forward and Wisconsin recruit Brooke Schramek go 5 for 5, which was more than enough to help her team prevail 66-49 to improve to 12-0.

Schramek finished with 17 points, as did senior guard and DePaul recruit Kendall Holmes, who had 11 in the first half. In fact 10 players scored for the Redwings, who canned eight 3-pointers.

"During practice this week, we worked a lot on our offense, just efficiency with our offense," Schramek said. "We all know the plays, obviously, but I think we were playing too fast, so this week we were talking about playing fast, but chill at the same time."

Holmes looked anything but chilled out in the first quarter. She scored 9 by the 4:07 mark, including a 3 from the right arc. Add 3s from senior guard Ashley Berry and senior forward Lindsey Rogers, and the Redwings looked to be in good shape at the end of the first quarter 22-10.

"We knew they were going to be a really good defensive team, so throughout the entire week that's what we were focusing on," Holmes said. "We were focusing on how they were going to come out and pressure us to the point where we had to be super strong with the ball, because they would be coming at us. They were going to have arms in our faces, and we mentally prepared for that."

The Dukes used a few 3-pointers of their own to hold onto that 12-point deficit heading into halftime. Coming out of it, Schramek took over and scored 13, making every shot she took, including a free throw. That extended the lead to 56-38 at its conclusion.

Six-foot York junior forward Megan Juneman kept things interesting for the Dukes (11-1) by scoring 14 of her team-high 16 points in the second half. She had been playing in short spurts this season so far due to an ankle injury, but took figurative, and literal, steps forward Saturday.

"I think something we've been working on for awhile is me trying to get a little bigger in the post," Juneman said. "The guards, Sydney Fuglsang and Carley Schwartz, they do a really good job of feeding me in, so it's hard not get some buckets when you get some nice passes."

Another positive for the Dukes was the 9-2 run they crafted in the last 5:50 of the game, including 5 points from Juneman. Now add 6-foot junior forward Kaitlyn Kjome, out with an MCL sprain, and the outcome might have been a tad different. Or a lot, considering York outrebounded Benet 19-17 without Kjome.

"They knocked down shots," Collings said of Benet. "If they're going to shoot like that, I thought we did a great job tonight. Their size advantage is enormous against us at every position. I thought we did a great job rebounding the basketball. I thought we did a great job with this pressure. They pressed us all game long. They are looking to speed you up the entire game.

"We lost by 17, but I took more positives than negatives out of this game, for sure."