The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
BIG THIRD QUARTER CARRIES PANTHERS
Elyria Catholic tops Bay in key GLC game
Overcoming a slow start against Great Lakes Conference rival Bay, Elyria Catholic came out and executed for a big third quarter and closed out the Rockets for a 55-38 victory on Jan. 5.
Panthers coach Eric Rothgery may not have seen the start he wanted, but Elyria Catholic finished the way it needed to in a matchup that typically decides the GLC title.
“They’re a nice team, very wellcoached. We don’t overlook anybody, but we always look at Bay as our competition to win this conference,” Rothgery said.
Elyria Catholic was held scoreless for the first five minutes of the game while Bay gathered a bit of momentum for an early 6-0 advantage.
“We just challenged our girls to play like we’ve practiced, I know that they’ve had trouble with Elyria Catholic before, so we’re just trying the change the mindset,” Bay head coach John Curran said after his first matchup against EC.
“I thought we did a pretty good job in the first half. We just have to maintain it for 32 minutes. We got 16, we just talked about it and we’ve got to play 16 more.”
Panthers senior Regan Schill, who finished with 13 points, said she kept the faith with her teammates.
“We started a little slow. We just needed to keep playing defense, bring the energy for ourselves and our teammates, get loud and just keep grinding it out,” Schill said. “We treated this game as if it was the GLC championship game, so that really helped push ourselves.”
The Panthers took their first lead with just under 3 minutes remaining in the first half on a 3-pointer by Faith Williams. They took a 21-20 edge into halftime.
Junior Ally Winnen kept the momentum going in the third quarter. Winnen’s basket and free throw started an 11-2 run. Winnen finished with 18 points and 17 rebounds.
“I told the girls at halftime, the nicest thing for me is when we draw something up at halftime and say this is the first play of the second half and actually go out and execute it,” Rothgery said. “And it was an and-1, so that made it even better.”
Fighting down low with the Rockets’ top players in seniors Maeve Johnston and Maddie Edgerly, Winnen said she knew Bay was going to get physical.
“I didn’t expect anything less from Bay to go out there and push me around and try and get physical with me and we just had to be patient,” Winnen said. “Right out from the scoop, we’re like we’re going to do our inside out game and we’ve got to hit a couple 3s, we got some inside looks and that just got our momentum going and it made us motivated on defense.”