Montini's Kunzer finds her spot in the corner

Once Claudia Kunzer found her spot, Loyola's comeback hopes were in big trouble.

A pair of Kunzer 3-pointers from the left corner gave Montini a double-digit lead in Friday night's GCAC Red girls basketball game, and the Broncos earned their 20th win of the season 48-40.

"That's my spot. That's my good spot, right in the corner, yes," Kunzer said. "The corner is my high-percentage shot."

The first 3 put host Montini (20-0, 4-0) ahead by 9 with 4:28 to play. Fifty seconds later, Kunzer's second 3 made it 42-30.

"It helped because we needed to get a lead, and coach (Jason Nichols) kept telling me to shoot," Kunzer said. "I knew I missed one before, so I had to keep shooting. I knew one would go in. So I just kept shooting."

Kunzer finished with a double-double: a game-high 16 points, 10 of them in the fourth quarter, plus 10 rebounds.

Senior forward Clare Nelson led Loyola (14-6, 2-2) with 12 points.

That the senior point guard led Montini in rebounds didn't excite Nichols, who was disappointed the rest of the Broncos didn't do more.

"She's the only kid on this team that rebounds," he said. "She goes and gets rebounds. She bails kids out."

"I've been down on rebounds, and it's just like, if no one's going to box you out, just go get it," Kunzer added. "Defense end and offense end. Someone has to step up and get the rebounds."

Loyola started the game by drawing Montini out of its preferred 2-3 zone, holding the ball offensively and daring the Broncos to come out and force the action. A low-scoring first half in which both teams struggled to get shots to drop was the result.

"Jeremy Schoenecker is an awesome coach, the guy's really good," Nichols said. "But he did that - and he would tell you he did that - because they have to find what they think is a weakness, maybe us not being able to defend. I think we defended fine. We were able to turn them over.

"My biggest issue was we didn't rebound the ball very well and we didn't execute on the offensive end like we should have."

Nichols had Schoenecker's thinking down pat.

"Expose some of their post players, and they actually missed some layups in the first part of that first quarter," Schoenecker said. " ... We wanted to keep it close. They could potentially go on a 15-0 run. We know the clock is hopefully going to be in our favor. We're down 6 at the end of the half, and at the end of the third. We've got a shot. That's all we wanted."

But then Kunzer hit those 3-pointers.