Resilient Riders: St. Marys overcomes 17-point deficit to beat New Bremen.
St. Marys overcomes 17-point halftime deficit to defeat New Bremen
NEW BREMEN — When the going gets tough, just keep shooting.
Shots were not falling for much of the game for St. Marys on Tuesday — especially in the first half — but the Roughriders kept pushing through by ratcheting up their defensive pressure and made clutch free throws down the stretch to overcome a 17-point halftime deficit and hand New Bremen a 42- 40 defeat.
“They picked things up there in the second half and we didn’t handle it very well,” Cardinals coach Chris Burden said. “We just kind of got into a funk again. We were able to slow things down in that first half and played at our pace.”
The Roughriders (9-3) shot just 14% in the first half and 25% from the floor in the third quarter but the remnants of a comeback were brewing in the quarter with St. Marys closing out the quarter with a 2-of-5 clip from the floor after shooting 3-of-13 through the first 5:22 and kept the Cardinals from recording a field goal for the first 6:28.
That slight improvement did not allow New Bremen (4- 6) to pull away as the Riders closed the 17-point gap down to 10 entering the final stanza.
“Once the fourth quarter hit we were able to pick up the traps a little bit more and we were able to get out on transition and that’s what kind of opened things up for us,” Roughriders coach Jon Burke added.
After Kaylee Freund opened the fourth quarter
with a quick bucket, Kendall Dieringer cashed in with a transition bucket following a turnover. After a missed 3-pointer, St. Marys raced the floor as Noey Ruane was fouled and deposited a pair of shots to close within eight and the junior benefitted from another Cardinals’ turnover with a bucket in transition. Suddenly, St. Marys trailed 37-31 with 6:19 remaining in regulation.
Two possessions later, Dieringer fired off a 3-pointer to close to within three following another New Bremen turnover and the junior connected on a jumper courtesy of a fifth miscue in the next possession to trail by just one.
A missed 3-pointer by Cora Rable was rebounded by Menker, who found Ruane in the paint as the junior did the rest to give St. Marys its first lead of the game, 42- 40, with 3:36 left.
Still in search of its first points since Freund’s opening-seconds bucket to begin the quarter, New Bremen turned the ball over a seventh time — this one leading to a pair of one- and-ones by Rable — as the sophomore calmly drained the foul shots to push the Roughriders’ lead to 40-37 with 36.2 remaining. Rable knocked down the front end of another one- and-one as the Riders’ lead 41-37 with 36.2 seconds left as Rable’s only points of the game sealed the victory.
“Cora is really coming along,” Burke said. “I am really proud of her development over these 12 games. Cora is a good offensive player, she can get to the rack and she had some really clutch free throws down the stretch for us.
“I am really proud of her performance tonight.”
Freund finally broke St. Marys’ scoring with a bucket and connected on one free throw, but the Roughriders put the game away with Rable’s foul shots and one more free throw by Kiley Tennant with 17.5 seconds left
St. Marys grabbed eight offensive rebounds and 21 total boards in the second half compared to 12 total rebounds for New Bremen. The Roughriders also took advantage of the Cardinals’ mistakes by scoring 14 points on New Bremen’s eight turnovers in the fourth quarter. Another contributing factor to the second-half turnaround was the lack of a scorer for the Cardinals.
Freund paced the team with 17 points, but
scored just two in the third quarter and was the lone player to score any points in the fourth. Madison Cordonnier finished with 12 points, but just three in the second half and none in the fourth quarter.
“Credit to Burke on making adjustments coming out of halftime and making his team believe that they could come back and win,” Burden said. “We just relaxed and that’s what you get — hopefully it becomes a learning lesson for us that you have to play 32 minutes of basketball and not just 16.
New Bremen jumped out to a 15-1 first-quarter lead with 2:02 remaining while St. Marys was shut out for 4:05 but the Riders closed the quarter with a 7-3 advantage — five of those points from Dieringer — to trail 18-8.
St. Marys was able to keep the game within 10 points until the Cardi
nals closed out the first half with a jumper by Cordonnier and a bucket by Freund to lead 29- 12.
New Bremen shot a healthy 12-of-22 from the floor (54.5%) in the first half and grabbed 14 defensive rebounds to St. Marys’ one offensive board.
“We needed to pick up the intensity on defense,” Burke said. “We were slow, we weren’t making good cuts, we weren’t talking to each other and we weren’t doing the little things right that we needed to. They were getting all of the rebounds, they were getting all of the good shots and they shot really well in the first half.”
The Cardinals’ match against Coldwater has been postponed for Thursday. The team’s next game is noon on Saturday with a varsity- only tip-off. St. Marys will travel on Thursday to Shawnee.