PEABODY– Baskets were hard to come by for the Bishop Fenwick girls basketball team Saturday afternoon when it hosted Bishop Feehan in an early season non-conference clash.
The Crusaders suffered from a flurry of turnovers, and couldn’t find rhythm offensively. The Shamrocks capitalized on Fenwick’s errors and came away with a 44-34 win.
“When you shoot 18 percent you’re not going to score a lot of baskets,” Crusaders coach Adam DeBaggis said. “That’s what happens against teams that play aggressive. I told them ‘you have to score against those teams to win.’ We want to beat these teams, we want to beat St. Mary’s. We have to score better. Playing defense only goes so far. That’s the next step we have to get to. We have to find more ways to put the ball in the hoop.”
Senior forward Olivia DiPietro was Fenwick’s lone scorer in double-digits with 14 points. DiPietro was aggressive in driving the ball into the paint and converted on seven of 12 free throw attempts.
“If Olivia can finish more baskets she can be a girl that scores 20 points once a week,” DeBaggis said. “She was really getting to the basket. She had a tough matchup because they had their tallest girl covering her and that’s what a lot of teams will do. She’s going to be the quickest tall girl on the court. She showed that tonight. If she can finish more she’s going to be a ridiculous player.”
Sophomore guard Liz Gonzalez (5 points), senior guard Jaxson Nadeau and sophomore forward Annie Murphy (4 points, 5 rebounds each) also contributed.
Neither team could get much going in the first quarter. Turnovers kept both short of offense and a late Feehan free throw made up the difference as the Crusaders trailed 9-8 heading into the second quarter.
“It’s a little of both (playing against a tough defense and early-season woes),” DeBaggis said. “We just have to have a little more composure when we get to the rim.
“It’s a work in progress. We have to keep working at it,” DeBaggis continued. “If we’re going to do anything big this year we have to fix that.”
Things livened up from there with both teams finding their rhythm. Fenwick opened the second quarter with 5-0 spurt, including Gonzalez’ 3-pointer. But the Shamrocks outscored Fenwick 17-11 and carried a 28-19 lead at halftime.
Hoping to liven up its offense, Fenwick made adjustments in the second half.
“We tried to play a little different on offense, spaced it out a bit more and tried to get girls driving,” DeBaggis said. “It didn’t really work. We went back to what we were doing in the first half, running the same plays. We have to do a better job looking for options on plays instead of getting locked in on the first thing to do. We had a lot of open girls elsewhere, we just couldn’t find them.”
After a few minutes of scoreless play, Gonzalez opened the scoring in the third quarter with a pair of free throws. Feehan answered quickly with back-to-back baskets in the paint and a 3-pointer to grab a double-digit lead at 35-21. Feehan led 37-25 at the end of the third quarter.
The Shamrocks coasted through the fourth quarter
The Crusaders (1-1) visit Catholic Central League rival Cathedral Tuesday evening (6:30).
“We’ve actually done well going to the Cathedral the past few years,” DeBaggis said. “We’ve come close to getting the win, we just haven’t done it so we’ll see what happens.”
