Rosary holds off St. Edward despite Yohn's 39

There were moments Tuesday when Rosary appeared ready to put St. Edward swiftly to the sword.

But then up stepped Katie Yohn, Rosary's lead was nearly gone and the story of the game was nearly redrawn.

But Rosary rebounded - literally - and emerged from a thrilling 79-73 Suburban Catholic Conference game.

The individual story was Yohn's 39-point effort. But more important than the scoring total was the 5-second, 6-point effort she put together with just under 1 minute to play.

First Yohn hit a long 3-pointer. Then she stole the inbounds pass and, still beyond the 3-point arc, drained another long-range effort and the Green Wave were behind only 74-70.

"We weren't playing our best in the beginning," Yohn said. "But we picked it up at the end. Everyone played really, really hard and our defense was better the last couple of minutes than it was the whole, entire game."

Still, 39-point games don't come around very often at any level of basketball, and Yohn's, which came on 14-for-31 shooting, was a classic performance by the Bradley-bound senior.

"It's not very often that you get to score that many," Yohn said. "My team looks for me a lot - and I look for them a lot also. It's a nice system we have going."

Moments later, the score was 75-71 but the visitors could not close the gap further.

"We had problems with the press there at the end and started panicking when we could have put it away," Rosary coach Dave Beebe said. "For the most part, I thought we did pretty well from the free-throw line. But give (St. Edward) credit. They battled back."

One of the keys in the game was Rosary's superior rebounding effort. The Royals (18-6, 8-5) outboarded the Green Wave (15-9, 7-5) by a whopping 50-30. Included in that total were at least 3 rebounds off missed free throws.

Breanna Maryanski was Rosary's top rebounder. She had 16 boards to go with 13 points. She was joined by Jordan Rettig, who had a 24-point, 13-rebound double-double. Stephanie Haugen (16 points) and Katie Petrando (10) also hit double-figures for the Royals.

"For a sophomore to come in like that really helped," Beebe said of Maryanski. "(Rettig) is going to get her points. (Haugen) is going to get her points. Petrando had a nice game as well. (Maryanski) is really stepping it up for us."

The Royals took off from a 33-28 halftime lead. In a spell indicative of some of Rosary's rebounding prowess, Rettig rebounded a Petrando missed free throw 19 seconds into the half. Rettig scored and was fouled - then completed the 3-point play. That sparked an 8-0 run.

Rosary kept its lead from early in the second quarter to the end of the game. When Rettig again rebounded and scored from an Audrey VanAcker missed free throw with 3 minutes to go, the lead was 63-52, and the hosts appeared to be in good shape.

Then St. Edward rallied behind a strong press and Yohn's shooting.