Montini wins but focuses on improvement

Most coaches would be happy after their team wins by 40 points, but Montini coach Jason Nichols was looking at the win from another angle.

The Broncos (31-1) had just beaten St. Francis 74-34 to win the St. Francis regional title Friday night when Nichols was already thinking about things to correct.

"Our mindset was very sloppy from the get-go," Nichols said. "We missed free throws, 3-pointers and layups tonight. I am not happy with how we played. We need to play better or someone is going to catch us on a night like tonight. Hopefully this will be a wake-up call for us to play how we should."

The Broncos never trailed in the game and were able to jump out to an 8-2 lead, but they struggled scoring and that stopped Montini from setting up its full-court press. The Broncos shot 18-for-31 from the free throw line and 2-for-15 from behind the 3-point arc for the game.

But when Montini did score, they made the most of it with their full court trapping as they forced St. Francis (16-14) into 30 turnovers.

"When they trapped, they were very quick and flustered our ball-handlers," St. Francis guard Lauren Pisarski said. "Overall I think we played well tonight, better than a lot of teams do against them, we left it all on the floor. But they are just a better basketball team than we are."

Whitney Holloway scored a game-high 14 points in the win while Whitney Adams finished with 10 points and 11 rebounds. Fiona McMahon scored a team-high 13 points and grabbed 8 rebounds in the loss.

Montini's Kiki Wilson looked at the game much like her coach did after the game.

"I think we are going to use this game to get better," Wilson said. "No matter if you win or lose you should be able to take something away from the game. We won so we need to come out more focused next game."