READING — Down by five points with 1:30 left in regulation, the Bishop Fenwick girls basketball team forced overtime and eventually took down Austin Prep, 46-43, on the road at Meelia Hall on Friday night. The Crusaders got off to a slow start, but eventually rallied to the win behind some great defense and timely shooting in the fourth quarter and overtime.
“I really didn’t like our overall effort in the first several minutes of the game, but after that we turned it around and played great,” said Fenwick coach Adam DeBaggis. “We really turned up the defense and hit some big shots, so I was really proud of how we fought back through it all.”
The scoring was pretty evenly distributed for Fenwick, with junior Olivia DiPietro registering 10 points and eight rebounds, freshman Liz Gonzalez recording 10 points and five rebounds and junior captain Sammi Gallant notching 10 points and three rebounds. Sophomore Micayla Rossi had nine points off the bench, while senior captain Jennie Meagher did everything but score in the game with 11 rebounds, three blocks and two steals.
The Crusaders had a hard time finding any offense in the first quarter. Not only were they not getting many good looks at the basket due to the Cougars’ tough defense, but they also weren’t making the open shots that they did get off. However, Fenwick was able to play good enough defense to keep it a close game, and Austin Prep led just 9-5 after one quarter.
The second quarter is where Fenwick made its biggest adjustment: switching to a 2-3 zone defense. The switch forced Austin Prep to start looking for outside shots and allowed the Crusaders to slowly creep back into the game, eventually tying the score. But two late three-pointers from the Cougars helped Austin Prep keep the lead, 19-16 at halftime.
“We made the switch from man to the 2-3 because we had to try and force them to make shots,” DeBaggis said. “At the beginning we were chasing the ball a bit, but once we settled down we got into a groove and they started missing shots.”
Fenwick took its first lead of the game with just under four minutes to go in the third quarter and ended the third with a 28-25 lead, but the fourth quarter was a true back-and-forth affair.
There were four lead changes and two ties in the fourth but things really got interesting in the final two minutes of regulation. The Cougars were leading 38-35 with 45 seconds left when Rossi hit a huge three to tie up the score. From there, each team had two opportunities to score the potential winning basket in the final 30-plus seconds, but each try ended in a miss and we headed to overtime.
The overtime was dominated mainly by DiPietro, who had multiple momentum-changing rebounds (including the game-clinching one with half a second left) and Courtney Norton, who hit a huge basket late to hold the lead for Fenwick and help seal the win.
This was a big win for the Crusaders (5-3), who have a true gauntlet of a schedule over the next two weeks with games against Catholic Central League powerhouses Archbishop Williams, St. Mary’s and Arlington Catholic. There is some light on the horizon, however, as they also hope to get back senior Fredi DeGuglielmo and junior captain Jaxson Nadeau, who have missed the entire season to this point due to injuries. The two are on a timetable to return sometime within the next two to three weeks.
“It’s crazy, but this will really be an entirely different team when those two are out there,” DeBaggis said. “That’s literally 20 points a night sitting on the bench, not even counting their defensive contributions and everything else. So that would be a huge boost for us, which we’ll need once we start playing all of these league games coming up.”
Fenwick will have a few days off before playing on the road against Archbishop Williams on Tuesday.
