Shamrocks take down Patriots with defense
Saco and Walton lead Yuma Catholic to victory over ALA-QC
Yuma Catholic girls basketball continued its hot start to the season with yet another win on Friday night at home.
The Shamrocks (3-0 AIA) beat American Leadership Academy (Queen Creek) (2-3 AIA) with a tough defensive effort that never allowed the Patriots to get into the action in a 52-31 win.
It was a bit choppy at times, but the YC defense held the Patriots without points for as long as 11:25 of game time. That scoring drought lasted from the end of the first quarter into the second half.
“Tonight I made an adjustment. I went from our man defense to a 1-2-2 zone with our zone press. That seemed to affect them,” Yuma Catholic coach Bob McGalliard said.
“We wanted to take the middle away. We thought we were getting beat there a little. I didn’t think they shot the ball that well and we kind of scouted them. We decided to play a zone and make them beat us from the outside. We had a little bit of foul trouble, so we went to the zone to survive the foul trouble.”
The rout was put on later in the game, but YC had to handle some new issues and grow from it in the
YC: 3-0 AIA ALA: 2-3 AIA
first half. Leading scorer junior guard Veronica Saco picked up her second foul early in the game, and the team had to rally without her for the better part of the first half.
Without her in the game, the offense struggled with turnovers in the first quarter, finishing that tied 1010, but they settled down and ran more efficiently after that. Baskets from sophomore Rori Martinez and junior Taylor Walton helped them push that lead out to 14 at the half at 24-10. Martinez had eight points and Walton had 15. Eight Shamrocks scored in the game.
“It’s huge. Obviously Veronica is one of our leaders. She’s a junior and a captain, so somebody had to step up and fill the void,” McGalliard said. “Kylie Meerchaum came in and did a great job to help us fill the void.”
ALA-QC didn’t score from 1:45 in the first quar-