LYNN— The St. Mary’s girls basketball team inched closer to a state tournament bid with a 55-46 win over Catholic Central League opponent Austin Prep Monday night at Tony Conigliaro Gymnasium.
“We got by without our best game tonight,” Spartans coach Jeff Newhall said. “We played Cathedral, the top team in the state (last) Friday and I thought we had a great effort. We weren’t emotionally great tonight but we did enough little things to get us by. There’s a lot of stuff that needs to be cleaned up but to be able to beat a good basketball team on a night where you don’t have your best is a good sign.”
St. Mary’s (9-3) was led by four scorers in double-digits. Pamela Gonzalez scored 12 points, Gabby Torres and Yirsy Queliz each finished with 11 and Olivia Matela added 10. Jannise Avelino tallied eight points and helped power a crucial 9-0 Spartans run at the end of the first half.
Austin Prep’s Mia Han led all scorers with 17 points, 10 of which were scored in the first half. Catherine Bravo and Jade Finnegan each finished with nine points.
Queliz gave the Spartans a quick 3-0 when she netted a 3-pointer on the game’s opening possession. From there, Han took over the quarter and gave St. Mary’s defense headaches. She scored eight of Austin Prep’s 11 points in the first quarter on a pair of 3-pointers and a basket. Matela banked a lay-up in the closing seconds, tying the game at 11-11 at the end of the first quarter.
“Mia’s a good athlete,” Newhall said. “She’s a very good soccer player and she’s a competitor. Her and Bravo, they’re good basketball players. We’ve played them twice, I’ve seen them play two other times and they play that way every night. They play very hard.”
Christina Nowicki, who returned to action after missing the first 11 games of the season nursing an injury, swished a 3-pointer to start the second quarter and gave the Spartans a 14-11 lead. The Cougars went on a quick 5-2 run to knot things at 16-16. Things quieted down for a bit until Avelino re-entered the game and hit three buckets in a row. Matela knocked home a 3-pointer at the buzzer and St. Mary’s closed the half on a 9-0 spurt to lead 25-16 at recess.
“Jannise got off to a tough start,” Newhall said. “We took her out and when she went back in for those last three-four minutes of the half she really dominated at both ends. She asserted herself. She was rebounding defensively, altering shots, getting after the ball.
“The last three minutes of the first half was probably the game,” Newhall said.
A jump shot from Gonzalez and a three from Matela put St. Mary’s in control, up 30-16 early in the third quarter. Amanda Williams ended the Austin Prep drought with a three, bringing the Cougars back on track. St. Mary’s closed the quarter with Torres’ 3-pointer, Gonzalez’s bucket and Queliz’s free throw, and carried a 40-29 lead after three quarters.
St. Mary’s stretched its lead to 16 in the fourth quarter with a 5-0 run out of the gate. Gonzalez helped keep Austin Prep away with seven points in the fourth to seal the win.
St. Mary’s hosts CCL rival Bishop Fenwick Friday night (6:30) in a rematch of last year’s Division 3 North quarterfinal game. With a win Friday the Spartans will clinch a state tournament berth.
“It’s a rivalry game,” Newhall said. “We seem to be fairly closely matched. We’ve played each other three times in two out of the last three years. We beat them twice in the regular season but they ended our season a year ago. We can’t do anything about last year. We can only control what we can control and that’s Friday. It’s a big game at home against your rival. We have to play a little bit better with more intensity but I anticipate we will.”
