Elyria Catholic back in regional final

Looking for a knockout blow against a pesky Ravenna Southeast squad making its first regional appearance in school history, Elyria Catholic’s Faith Williams rattled tie Pirates with a flurry of shots just before half. The experienced Panthers rode that wave to a 52-32 victory on March 6 at Cuyahoga Falls High School. Elyria Catholic is set for a rematch of last year’s Division III regional final with a date against Doylestown Chippewa on March 9 at 1:30 pm at Cuyahoga Falls. Senior Faith Williams sank all of her 11 points with under 2:50 less to play before half to expand the Panthers’ lead to 25-9 headed into the break. Elyria Catholic head coach Eric Rothgery said after the hot shooting by Williams was a huge compliment to the defense the team was playing as a whole.

“You know, down three 3s in that quarter there, that’s obviously going to make a difference,” Rothgery said. “The defensive intensity was there from the beginning, 6-4 at the end of the first quarter, I think maybe Faith rushed a few early and then she just got into a groove and then once you do that, they’re out there face guarding her and you’ve got bigs inside, you can hit Ally (Winnen) inside, so that’s what we want to be able to do to teams. We want to give them a chance to look at our inside game and our outside game.” Opening up the court for her teammates to find her, Williams said the stretch before half built everyone’s confidence up headed into the break on a positive note. “It was really big to get that stretch before half because I think then we settled in and were like ‘OK, we can really lock this thing down’ and we did a great job of it,” Williams said. “Ally did an amazing job in the second half of really sealing the deal. She finished in the paint and (I’m) really, really proud of her for that.” Once the Pirates crept up on defense to challenge the Elyria Catholic guards, it was time for the Winnen twins to go work down low. Getting plenty of opportunities to score in the low post, the Panthers fed Ally for a game-high 21 points that left Southeast without any answers. Giving credit to the catalyst of the Elyria Catholic offense, Ally said Williams really gave her team the extra push to finish out the game strong. “Faith went on this little run where she kept making 3s, hitting a couple and we weren’t hitting our shots in the first place in the first quarter, but we knew they would come and we knew we would get in a rhythm,” Ally said. “(Faith)’s a really good hype man, so she got us all hyped.” Adding to her sister’s effort, Abby Winnen finished with four points, but was huge in the battle down low once things going going for the Elyria Catholic. Highlighting that highlow style of offense where the Panthers can bite you from anywhere on the court, the Winnen’s claimed the paint for the green and white and never looked back. “In practice we just work on high-low, coach (Rothgery) and (Joe) Schill both tell us just pound it inside, pound it inside,” Abby said. “So, that’s what we do. We pass it well, we get it inside, it’s just great.”