YPSILANTI — While the final scores of the Catholic League’s Cardinal and St. Anne Division girls basketball championship games were ultimately one-sided, neither winning coach would describe the outcome as an easy victory.
Wixom St. Catherine of Siena claimed its third Cardinal Division title in five seasons by downing Allen Park Cabrini, 67-41, while Clarkston Everest Collegiate successfully defended its St. Anne Division title over Grosse Pointe Woods University-Liggett, 41-20, in a double-header played at Eastern Michigan University on Feb. 22.
Even though both the Stars and the Mountaineers had soundly beaten their championship-game foes twice during the regular season, they each faced challenges in the first half before pulling away after the break.
St. Catherine wins up-tempo battle for Cardinal crown
Even though St. Catherine was winning on the scoreboard, coach Dave Skown felt like they were being beaten at their own game.
“We knew they like to run,” Skown said of his Cabrini foes. “They put in a couple new wrinkles on their fast break, and they were awesome in the first quarter and the second quarter. They were playing faster than us, more aggressive than us, when they shot they couldn’t miss. Coach Karen (Jabczenski) is a great, great coach and we expected nothing different.”
Cabrini led 13-9 after the first quarter, and St. Catherine couldn’t get into the lead until less than two minutes remained before the break. The Stars scored on five of their last seven possessions in the first half, going into the break on top, 22-16.
That stretch seemed to motivate the Stars, and Skown felt his team could wear down Cabrini by keeping the pressure on.
“When we got to the locker room, we thought maybe we could get a 6-0 or 8-0 run at some point here during the third quarter and push this up to a 15-, 16-, 18-point lead, because I never felt comfortable,” he said. “Even going into the fourth quarter, it just seemed like we weren’t up that much because (Cabrini) played so well.”
“We always come out great in the third quarter,” said Stars’ captain Caitlin Griffin. “We knew that we came here to win, so we just needed to compose ourselves and settle down, and then we played great.”
Griffin scored a game-high 25 points while Lauren Smith added 16.
“Let’s not kid ourselves — I’ve got some talented young ladies,” Skown said. “We have a great leader in Caitlin Griffin, a couple great juniors, and I’ll tell you what — the next three off our bench after our starters are three freshmen. That helps a lot, too. They’ve bought into our fast-tempo pace, and we like to press, we like to run a little bit. Everyone kind of bought in and got better as the year went on, and really all the credit goes to the young ladies. They’re a joy to coach and they work hard and they’re tough as nails, and just a lot of fun.”
Winning the Catholic League championship has been the top goal all season for the Stars, who improved to 18-3 overall, 8-0 in the CHSL AA Division.
“We’ve been working towards this title ever since the summer,” said Griffin, who will continue her career at Adrian College next year. “Coach Dave always says, ‘In June or July, this is where we start working toward that CHSL championship,’ and I think that really translates into our practices, especially with our leaders. Me and my other co-captains try to get the girls focused so that we can be here.”
“When we get together right after tryouts around Thanksgiving, we always set goals, and this is the number-one goal by far, winning the Catholic League playoffs,” Skown said. “We put all our energy into this, all our scouting into this. This is A-number-one most important, and I’m proud of them.”
Cabrini (13-5, 4-4 AA) got 17 points from Maeve O’Connell and 12 from Natalie Courtright.
Everest pulls away, repeats at St. Anne champs
Everest had beaten University-Liggett by 21 points in each of the two prior match-ups this winter, so it figured that the Mountaineers were clear favorites to win the St. Anne Division title.
But without two of their starters in the lineup — Abby Legg and Sarah Bradley — Liggett was able to keep things much closer throughout the first half, and only trailed 18-16 when the teams went to the locker room.
However, it didn’t take Everest coach Erin Van Wagoner long to figure out what adjustments would benefit her team the most.
“I think at halftime we just realized what we needed to do to take care of ourselves: play a little bit stronger defense, rotate better on our zone defense in the second half,” she said. “Offensively we started doing what we do best: we ran the ball a little bit more in transition and we were able to work inside-out.”
From then on, it was a different game. Everest rattled off the first eight points of the third quarter to take a 10-point lead, and never looked back.
Defensively, the Mountaineers clamped down, only allowing Liggett to score two baskets in the third quarter, and shutting them out entirely in the fourth. When it was all said and done, it was yet another 21-point Everest victory.
“Whenever you play in a big arena, it’s difficult for shooters to adjust, so in the second half I think we saw the basket a little bit better and we buried some threes like we’re capable of doing, which made a big difference,” Van Wagoner said. “I just told them, ‘Open shots are three points, so shoot with confidence and take the three points.’”
Elena Nieman jump-started the rally by canning two triples in the pivotal third quarter. She finished with 8 points, adding to the Mountaineers’ balanced scoring attack, which also featured contributions from Susan Nedwick (8 points), Erica Walker (9) and Kirsten McBride (12).
Everest (15-2) finished atop the Catholic League’s Intersectional-1 division with an undefeated 8-0 mark. Their only losses came in crossover contests against St. Catherine and Warren Regina. Liggett, the second-place team in the division, fell to 10-8 overall, 6-2 in league play.
Kerith Short scored a game-high 16 points for the Knights, including both of their second-half baskets.
