Jan 29, 2008 By Dave Stofcheck 3 min read

CARMICHAELS – Behind a tenacious defense and balanced scoring attack, Geibel Catholic wrapped up its third straight section championship Monday night with a hard-fought 51-43 victory over Carmichaels. Mia White tossed in 13 points, while Breanne Dowden added 12 and a team-high seven rebounds, as the Lady Gators improved to 15-5 overall and 9-0 in Section 2-A.

Defensively, Geibel’s man-to-man full-court press was at times too much for Carmichaels to handle, as the Lady Gators forced 25 turnovers.

“Carmichaels is a tough team for us to play,” said Lady Gators coach Pat Klocek. “They’re taller than us. We just can’t let them walk the ball up the court and throw it inside. We have to use our speed and intelligence on defense to try to create an advantage.”

As it did when the teams met earlier this season, Geibel took control of Monday’s game during a decisive third quarter. Leading by just two points at halftime, the Lady Gators forced eight Lady Mikes turnovers and doubled up the hosts, 16-8, to take a 10-point lead into the final period.

Three weeks ago, Geibel Catholic trailed at the half by one point, but used a 22-9 third-quarter advantage to defeat Carmichaels, 58-43.

“It was the same story up there,” said Lady Mikes coach Jim Lane. “That man-to-man pressure wore us down. I told the team at halftime that the first half was the easy half. The second half was going to be the tough one.”

Sarah Erdely and Julianne Speeney added eight points each for Geibel. Erdely scored all but two of her points during the first quarter and helped the Lady Gators build a 16-10 lead.

Carmichaels stayed close through the second quarter, and three times pulled to within two points, the last time with 37.6 seconds left in the half at 24-22.

The Lady Mikes’ Jordan Duke scored 10 points in the opening half, and finished with a game-high 18. Duke entered the game averaging 15.8 points on the season and 20.2 points over her last five games.

Molly Stuvek added 10 points for Carmichaels, which drops to 11-10 overall and 7-2 in section play. A win Monday night would have given the Lady Mikes a share of the section lead.

Like Geibel, Carmichaels has already clinched a WPIAL playoff berth.

“I told the girls after the game to remember what this feels like,” Lane said. “I told them to let’s learn from this. All of our girls will be back, but we have to be better at handling the basketball for us to contend for the section title next year.”

Geibel began to pull away midway through the third quarter, and twice took 10-point leads, the last coming right before the period ended when Rebecca Sandor scored on a putback to give the visitors a 40-30 advantage.

Carmichaels cut the deficit to four points when Duke scored from the base line with 5:02 remaining, but a 7-0 run gave Geibel its largest lead, 47-36, with 3:24 to play.

“Our girls are very unselfish,” Klocek said. “Whether it’s a guard or a forward, all of our girls can handle the ball. And as the season has gone on, we’ve become better at recognizing the open player and passing the ball quickly where we want to.

“Our scoring has evened out during the second half of the season.”