Yohn's 36 not enough for Wave
The Rosary girls basketball team came to Elgin Tuesday night knowing full well St. Edward junior Katie Yohn could take over the game.
And in stretches Yohn did just that. But in the end the visiting Royals were able to withstand Yohn's career-high tying 36-point effort to come away with a hard-fought 67-62 Suburban Catholic Conference win.
"I thought St. Edward played great and obviously Yohn played great," said Rosary coach Dave Beebe. "When she's hitting those shots she's really hard to defend. But we got more aggressive in the second half."
St. Edward (7-7, 3-3), which lost for the sixth time in its last seven games, overcame a slow start to grab a 32-27 halftime lead. Yohn was sparkling in the second quarter, hitting 4 of 5 from 3-point range, 2 of them from 25 feet away and the last a buzzer-beater from just inside halfcourt. She scored 14 of her 17 first-half points in the second quarter.
The Green Wave stretched its lead to 38-30 after an Amanda DeBrocke basket with 4:17 left in the third quarter but over the next two minutes, the entire complexion of the game changed as Rosary (14-4, 6-1) went on a 12-0 run to take a 42-38 lead with 2:29 left in the quarter. Senior Colleen Van Bogaert (9 points) nailed two of her three 3-pointers on the night during the run.
"(Yohn) was on fire and it was really hard to stop her," said Rosary senior guard Victoria Alvarez, who had a stellar defensive game with 8 steals to go along with 11 points. "We just picked up our offense and played our game. I don't think we were real happy with our defense in the first half."
St. Edward coach Michelle Dawson pointed to that two minutes as the story of yet another close loss, the fourth time in the six losses the Wave has lost by 5 points or less.
"We played about a 30-minute game tonight," Dawson said. "We took those two minutes off, they got some 3s and got back into the game and we missed too many free throws."
After Rosary's run, St. Edward twice had leads of 1 point and the game was tied at 52 after Celeste VonAhnen (16 points, 10 rebounds) scored with 4:57 to play. But with Yohn on the bench nursing a leg cramp, the Royals regained the lead and were then able to hold the ball, forcing St. Edward to foul. Even though Yohn came back in, the Royals had clearly gained the momentum.
And the free-throw line is where the Royals won the game. Rosary went 13-for-15 at the stripe in the fourth quarter with senior guard Faith Jones (11 points) nailing 7 of 8.
"Faith Jones really stepped up with her free throws tonight," said Beebe. "She shot terribly here last year but tonight she stepped up. And Victoria really stepped up and showed some senior leadership tonight."
Rosary held St. Edward scoreless from the 4:57 mark until there was 1:02 left in the game. During that stretch, the Royals were 7 of 7 from the free-throw line and extended their lead to 62-52.
"They've got a solid all-around team that keeps coming at you," Dawson said of Rosary. "We knew they weren't going to let up."
Sophomore Jordan Rettig scored 12 of her team-high 18 points in the first half to lead the Royals. Other than Yohn and VonAhnen, St. Edward had no one score more than 4 points.