By RYAN ARENA
L’Observateur

LAPLACE – After falling behind by 23-8 at halftime of Thursday’s district matchup at De La Salle, the St. Charles Lady Comets basketball team knew it needed defensive stops to rally back.

The Comets got plenty of them – but on this night, it just wasn’t enough. 

Despite allowing zero points in a low-possession second half, St. Charles came up on the short end of a 23-19 Cavalier victory in District 11-3A action. 

Coming out of the half, St. Charles (8-11, 2-4) locked in on defense led by point guard Lela Hill. Hill created chaos in the Cavalier passing lanes and got loose for a handful of transition opportunities – she scored six of SCC’s eight third quarter points. 

A Julia Cupit jumper cut De La Salle’s lead to 23-13, then a Hill steal and layup made it an eight-point game. 

From there, the pace of the game slowed to a crawl. With numerous De La Salle players in severe foul trouble, the Cavaliers pulled the ball out and attempted to pull SCC out of its zone defense. De La Salle dribbled out the third quarter without attempting another shot, then went into its four corners offense in the fourth quarter.

“We had to slow it down,” said De La Salle coach Justin Martineau. “We had two girls with four fouls already, two went on to foul out … they played back and that allowed us to shorten the game. We made some silly mistakes, though.”

The Comets extended their zone and applied a bit of light pressure early in the fourth, but never committed to man-to-man. De La Salle was able to run a lot of clock, but the Comets were able to force enough turnovers to give themselves a chance. 

“They turned it over a few times and we took advantage,” said SCC coach Larry Bettencourt. “That put us in position to get back into it and make it a battle.’

“We’re a zone team. They wanted to get us out of our defense, and that’s something that wasn’t going to be to our advantage so early (in the fourth quarter).”

Kaitlyn Lowry began the fourth with a shot inside, then Maddie Murphy drew a foul and sank one of two at the line to make it 23-18. 

Hill registered a steal and had a chance to cut the margin to 3, but missed a contested shot at the other end. De La Salle pushed the ball and attempted to get a put-away bucket, but missed its own layup attempt with 1:16 left. Hill snatched the rebound and drew a foul with SCC in the bonus. 

“(Hill) did a nice job defending 24 (De’shia Dillon) in the second half,” said Bettencourt. “She was able to get out in transition a little bit there and create some turnovers.”

She sank the first free throw and then the second, but the latter was negated due to a lane violation. The Comets got one last stop and after a DLS miss, Hill took a jumper from the shallow corner to try and cut the deficit to two, but the attempt missed long. De La Salle was able to run the clock out from there.

“The first half was probably the best half we’ve played all year. We just weren’t crisp at all after that,” said Martineau. 

De’shia Dillon led the Cavaliers (5-9, 4-2) with 12 points. Jessica Porter added six. 

Cupit finished with eight points to lead SCC. Hill scored six and Lowry four. 

Bettencourt said that his team has to do a better job at the foul line. SCC shot 2 for 9 at the line in the final period, looming large in a close loss.

By the same token, he praised the effort of his team to claw back and make things interesting in the final minutes. 

“I’m proud of our girls,” he said. “They showed a lot of fight tonight.”

 

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ST. CHARLES 27, MCGEHEE 10 – SCC bested a district foe Monday for its second 11-3A win this season.

Lowry and Hill each scored 10 to lead the Comets. Murphy added six.