LC falls short to Prendergast

For Montgomery Media

The smallest player on the court in the Lansdale Catholic gym came up big.

Bonner-Prendergast’s Alyssa Monaghan, who is listed at 5-foot-5 on the Pandas’ roster, scored 28 points to hand the Crusaders a 58-50 loss — their second-straight in the Philadelphia Catholic League and their eighth against two wins overall.

Lansdale Catholic got off to a good start after trailing 6-1 in the first period. Shalina Miller helped lead the Crusaders back against that deficit, scoring nine points in the opening quarter, which LC finished with a 12-9 lead.

But then Monaghan got rolling. She scored seven points of her own in the second quarter as the Pandas took a 24-22 lead into halftime.

“She’s a great player,” LC coach Heather Weindorfer said. “I knew going in that she’s a very smooth point guard. And she’s only a sophomore.”

In the third period, Monaghan scored only four points, all from the foul line. But BonnerPrendergast tallied 16, holding Lansdale Catholic to nine for a 40-31 lead.

It was in the fourth quarter that Monaghan really killed the Crusaders. She scored 14 of her 28, only four of them from the field.

In fact, she made 14 free throws in the fourth quarter and 19 of 20 in the game.

“I said don’t foul them because they’ll hit, but she’s a nice player,” Weindorfer said. “I said that they’re going to keep the ball in her hands. If anyone else touches it, you should be fouling them.”

The big problem for the Crusaders came in that third period. They couldn’t seem to get any offense going.

“I think we came out real flat in the second half, which I didn’t expect,” Weindorfer said. “We missed a lot of layups in the first half, so I thought we’d come out more fired up, but I thought we came out real flat in the second half.”

If it weren’t for Miller, the Crusaders might not have had any offense.

“We knew we had the post presence against them,” said Weindorfer about the 6-4 Miller down low in the paint. “But then they started doubling on her and that’s when we need other people to step up and start scoring.”

rnfortunately for Lansdale Catholic, that didn’t happen. The Crusaders’ outside shooting was not there.

Largely missing from the offense was the usually highscoring Mary Kate Brokans. Brokans scored nine points, seven of them in the second half.

Prendergast broke early in the first quarter, scoring six of the first seven points. The lone LC point came on a free throw by Kim Talley.

But then the Crusaders’ offense got moving. Brokans’ layup got LC within three and Miller scored the next nine points, broken only by a 3-pointer by the Pandas’ Monaghan.

Lansdale Catholic built on its first period lead, scoring the first five points of the second quarter. Claire Hill fired in a 3-pointer and Talley made a layup and suddenly the LC lead was 17-9.

But Prendergast started to pick away at that lead. The Pandas scored 15 of the next 20 points to grab a 24-22 halftime bulge.

Then, as Weindorfer said, the Crusaders came out a little flat to start the third period. Their points were spaced around Prendergast streaks of five, six and six points. Brokans’ 3-pointer with 12 seconds left pared the deficit for LC down to nine points entering the final quarter.

The last stanza was played to a standoff with both teams scoring 19 points in the quarter. Lansdale Catholic put together an eight-point streak which earned it a tie at 4242 but Bonner-Prendergast came right back and took the lead again on a triple by Sarah Monaghan and a layup by Alyssa Monaghan.

The Crusaders could never get closer than a two-point deficit after that. And the Pandas padded their lead late in the game from the foul line with Alyssa Monaghan doing most of the damage, hitting eight straight from the stripe.

Miller finished with 17 points for Lansdale Catholic, the lone Crusader in double figures. In addition to Alyssa’ Monaghan’s 28, Sarah Monaghan added 10 for the Pandas.