Monessen prevails in defensive struggle
CARMICHAELS – In a defensive struggle, Monessen had just enough offense in a raucous environment to beat Carmichaels, 39-28, Thursday night in Section 3-A action. The loss snaps a three-game winning streak by Carmichaels (8-3, 4-1) as Monessen (6-1, 4-0) won its fifth consecutive game.
“We played hard all the way to the end,” Carmichaels coach Jim Lane said. “Give Monessen a lot of credit. They are a very solid basketball team. I’m proud of the effort my girls showed. We did not quit. It’s just hard to match-up with that speed and athleticism.
“We did not have a good night shooting the basketball, which led to a lot of transition points for them. We are young, and hopefully we can build on this down the road.”
“I told them after the game that if we would have won this one, this wasn’t going to decide the section championship. This just means that we are one game down. We can learn from it and get better from it, and use it as a motivator for the second half of the season.”
The Lady Greyhounds scored the first bucket, but the Lady Mikes answered with five straight points to take the lead and cling to an 8-7 lead at the end of the opening quarter.
The Lady Mikes had a cold spell from the floor in the second quarter, and the Lady Greyhounds took advantage of it with their opportunistic defense that translated into several fast break points and a 15-8 scoring edge in the quarter.
Monessen held a 22-16 lead at halftime.
The Lady Greyhounds opened the third quarter on a 7-2 run and ended the quarter by outscoring the Lady Mikes by an 11-6 margin, as Carmichaels couldn’t find a consistent, offensive rhythm.
Only 12 points were scored in the final quarter of play, six by both teams, and six points coming from the free throw line, but it did prove for some excitement as a double technical foul was given to Monessen’s coach, Gina Naccarato, that resulted in her being kicked out of the game with 3:04 remaining in the game.
Monessen was able to seal the win late and hassled the Carmichaels’ offense by denying the pass inside to senior Molly Stuvek and disrupting passing lanes in the paint.
“One thing about this group is that we are really balanced,” Lane said. “We have five different girls lead us in scoring in a game this season. We have several girls that average about 10 to 12 points a game. I think what Monessen did that really hurt us was cutting off passing lanes. They played zone the whole entire game and it was so hard to penetrate the zone and make passes out of it. It’s hard to get use to their speed, and you have to just play against it in order to be ready for that type of play.”
Despite not putting up huge numbers, Stuvek had a very, solid game overall on both ends of the floor. She collected nine points, eight rebounds, four blocks, four assists and three steals.
Freshmen guards Anna Cree and Morgan Berardi added seven and six points, respectively for the Lady Mikes.
Monessen sophomore Geena Shrader garnered a game-high 12 points, while freshman Mariah Altomore-Ward had 10 points.
“I’m proud of how our girls played because we are still a young team,” Naccarato said. “It was a good game for us in a hostile environment, and we stepped up to the plate. Defensively, we did not want them to get the ball into the high post and shutdown their inside game. Carmichaels is a good team, and we knew we would be in a dogfight tonight. We all stepped up to the adversity tonight.”
Carmichaels played three tough games this week against teams that made it to the playoffs last year from their section and came out with close wins against Geibel Catholic and California.
“This week just proves that this team is a close-nit group,” Lane said. “It comes down to the seniors being good leaders and having the younger players knowing their roles. I’m pleasantly surprise on how well we are developing this team. We had three tough games this week. It was a lot of pressure and a lot of close, competitive games in our section. We took one of the toughest team in the area tonight to the limit and down to the end. We made a lot of mistakes, and we need to correct them the next time we play Monessen.”
The Lady Mikes are on the road Monday at Jefferson-Morgan.