The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Pirates’ 3-point shooting stuns Bay
When is a rivalry not a rivalry? When one team never wins.
Welcome back, Rocky River.
Riding the otherworldly success of hitting 12 of 19 3-point attempts, visiting Rocky River shocked Bay Dec. 9, holding a 13-point lead deep into the third quarter and then holding on for a hard-fought 5754 victory. It was the first time the Pirates defeated Bay since at least the 201415 season.
“I’ve never beaten Bay on varsity,” said senior Anne Beirne, who chipped in with 12 points. “It’s a huge victory for us. In the locker room we were so ecstatic like you wouldn’t believe.”
The Pirates sit atop the Great Lakes Conference standings with a 3-0 mark, 4-1 overall. Bay falls to 3-2 overall, 2-1 in conference play.
“It feels good,” Rocky River coach Elaine Robinson said of being in first place in the GLC. “We’re going to enjoy this win over the weekend, and then when we come to practice on Monday, we’ll go right to working on Holy Name (Wednesday’s opponent). We go one game at a time.”
Bridget McCue led the Pirates with 16 points, followed by Beirne and Samantha Miller with 12 each. Hanna Chapman added 11 points and Nani Meese
had six. As far as 3-pointers made, McCue and Miller each had four, Chapman had three and Beirne had one.
“We’ve watched them a lot, and on every film that we’ve seen, they didn’t hit 3s like that,” said Bay coach Brian Hill. “If a team gets hot like that and you’re not, you just have to tip your hat to them and tell them good job.”
Ironically, in the game’s first 4 minutes, it appeared the Pirates were going to get run out of the gym. They allowed layups on four consecutive possessions and were faced with an 8-0 hill to climb. Things changed
once Robinson called a timeout and calmed down her charges.
“We love the Bay game,” she said. “We really hype it up. The key was to play Rocky River basketball. We had to do what we do best. We had to be us.”
Rocky River went on a 15-2 run immediately after the timeout to take a 15-10 lead. But just as quickly, with junior Maddie Edgerly scoring nine consecutive points, the Rockets battled back to take the lead, 19-18. Both teams went through long stretches without scoring — Rocky River went more than 4 minutes in losing the lead, but then Bay
failed to score in the final 4:08 of the period as the Pirates hit three consecutive 3-pointers to take a 27-19 halftime lead.
Eventually the lead got up to 13 points, 39-26, with 2:23 remaining in the third quarter. Bay put together an impressive comeback and had a chance to tie the game at the buzzer, but a 3-point attempt from the right side bounced off the rim at the buzzer.
A key factor in the game was the health of Bay’s Maeve Johnston. The junior missed the season’s first four games with an ankle sprain and the plan was to gradually work her into the Rocky River game while keeping her minutes to a minimum. However, Bay’s bread-and-butter 1-3-1 half court trap was at its most effective with Johnston on the top, and with his team losing, Hill found himself having to play Johnston more than he had planned.
“She wanted to stay out there the whole time,” Hill said of Johnston, who scored all of her seven points in the third period. “I really played her more than I wanted to. But she’s such a gamechanger. A healthy Maeve will be a huge boost for us for the rest of the season.”
Bay was led by Edgerly with a game-high 20 points. Halle Orr added 12, Haley Andrejcak had nine and Johnston had seven.