Panthers pick up GLC win over Pirates

The Elyria Catholic girls basketball team held off a feisty Rocky River squad on Jan. 12 for a 71-42 victory. Faith Williams scored 23 points and Regan Schill added 14 for the Panthers.

Taking care of business on the road, Elyria Catholic held off a feisty Rocky River squad on Jan. 12 for a 71-42 victory.

While the final score didn’t show it, the Pirates never made it easy for Great Lakes Conference foe Elyria Catholic as Rocky River’s young core went out and fought for every possession.

Falling behind early on, the Pirates’ game plan had to change from one of aggression, to a more focused approach on finishing plays off and narrowing the gap brought on by the Panthers.

“This group I’ve never doubted, they play for the full 32 minutes every single ELYRIA CATHOLIC 71, ROCKY RIVER 42

game and if you look at the third quarter and halfway through the fourth, for those 12 minutes in the second half, we held them to 19,” Rocky River head coach Elaine Robinson said. “So that’s some thing to say, I understand they weren’t full-court pressuring us anymore. But that says something about these kids. They do not give up, they don’t care about the scoreboard, they understand that our goal at halftime changed prior to the game.

“Our goal at halftime was to continue to chip away, play our hardest and see what can happen and that’s what they did. The kids are fighters, I give it to them, but Elyria Catholic, they had a good night.”

Getting a nice showing from sophomore Julia Potts, who finished with 17 points, Rocky River’s young group got a learning experience and never backed down from one of the best teams in the state.

Using the game as a learning experience, Robinson said the goal now is to improve the next time the two schools square off.

“We’ve got to get better, between now and the next time we see them, we just have to get better,” Robinson said. “That’s our goal, and at this point we told the girls you can be mad about it for five minutes and then we have Bay on Wednesday. The month of January’s a grind for us, conference wise, so we’ve got to move on and get ready for Bay.”

Seeing his team go out on a big lead, Elyria Catholic head coach Eric Rothgery said his team played well out of the gate, but got unfocused toward the end even in a decisive win.

“We wanted to really amp up the intensity. We’re working on a new press and we’ve never had a lot of success pressing, so we tried a couple different things and we liked what we saw in the first quarter there,” Rothgery said. “The energy was good there, our rotations were pretty good and obviously we were moving the ball, then you get up and it’s hard not to pull back a little bit and then it got a little sloppy. So, you win by 29 and still have things to work on, but they’ve got a good, young team and stuck with the things do well all the way though.”

When the Panthers were in full sync in the first half, the Elyria Catholic offense was taking every bit of momentum and feeding off the support. On an afternoon where senior point guard Faith Williams dropped 23 points, the Panthers kept the ball moving and found senior Regan Schill often as well as she dropped 14.

“We’re trying to work on our defense to reach our potential and to get ready for tournament time, so we’re trying to push ourselves really hard,” Schill said. “We can never let down and we know for tournament time, we can’t let down there at any moment in the game. We have to push ourselves and keep pushing so we can win.”

Looking very comfortable within its offense, the Panthers movement inside and out appeared in tournament form. Centered around a team that has all of its sights on another trip to Columbus, Elyria Catholic’s offense keep showing improvement with each player on the court.

“It’s really starting to flow and come together because we’ve been playing with each other for about three years now,” Schill said. “We’re really starting to mesh coming into the end of the season headed to postseason play.”