LYNN — If the St. Mary’s girls basketball team needed a refresher course as to how competitive the Catholic Central League would be this season, the Spartans got it Monday night.
Arlington Catholic took advantage of a sluggish St. Mary’s start and defeated the Spartans, 51-48, at Tony Conigliaro Gymnasium.
“We did a lot of things wrong and we have a lot of work to do,” St. Mary’s coach Jeff Newhall said. “We could be a good basketball team. We had good momentum going to (Archbishop) Williams last week and things didn’t go well. We didn’t really learn much from it. We came out and played just as bad on our home floor.”
Senior Pam Gonzalez led the Spartans with 15 points and eighth-grader Yirsy Queliz scored 14 points, knocking home four 3-pointers. Junior Olivia Matela added eight points.
Stonehill-bound Erin Donlan, scored 29 points to lead the Cougars. Kristen O’Keefe added 10 points, swishing five of six free throw attempts.
St. Mary’s didn’t get the start it hoped for. Arlington Catholic’s Kristen O’Keefe scored the first five points of the game. Erin Donlan and Katrina Perez followed with back-to-back baskets, forcing the Spartans to burn a timeout as they fell into a 9-0 hole with 3:50 left in the quarter.
“They want to play a ‘slower down’ game and set screens and double screens for Donlan,” Newhall said. “When you spot them 9-0 right off the bat, you’re playing at the pace they want.” Janise Avelino (five points) put St. Mary’s on the board with a put-back after the timeout. St. Mary’s added seven points over the next three minutes but trailed 12-9 at the end of the first quarter.
Arlington Catholic’s lead was whittled down to a point twice in the second quarter. Queliz gave the Spartans a much-needed spark off the bench with a pair of 3-pointers toward the end of the quarter, the second of which put St. Mary’s ahead (for the first time) at 21-20.
“Of all the players we had tonight, I thought Yirsy played the best basketball game,” Newhall said. “Defense is still a work in progress but you didn’t see her force anything against triple teams. She takes what’s given to her. If it’s a three, great. If it’s a dribble, drive and shot, fine. There was no rush. She played a good basketball game. If we can get one or two people to do it, we should be able to get nine or 10 people to do it.”
That’s where it stood at halftime.
St. Mary’s hung close in a back-and-forth second half but the Cougars, with Donlan controlling the game, kept the Spartans at an arm’s length. A Torres steal turned into an easy lay-in and pulled St. Mary’s within three, 49-46, with one minute to play. That’s as close as St. Mary’s would get, however, as the Cougars held on for the 51-48 win. Donlan scored 22 of her 29 points in the second half to help put the game away.
“Our decision making with the ball just needs to improve,” Newhall said. “We had nine possessions in the fourth quarter in which we drove it and shot it against two, three defenders and the ball didn’t hit the rim. Those are nine possessions that we just gave the ball away. In game that was back and forth, to just have nine possessions where you rush a shot against a triple team and it produces points the other way is totally counterproductive to the way we’re supposed to play.”
St. Mary’s heads south to Florida where the Spartans will play their next two games. They’ll play Dr. Phillips Wednesday evening (5) and Melbourne Friday afternoon (3).
