Girls basketball: Mersinger helps Benet get early jump on St. Charles East, advance to Montini tournament semifinals

Ever since junior point guard Ava Mersinger made her varsity debut as a freshman, Benet coach Joe Kilbride has been urging her to shoot the ball.

Now she’s finally doing it.

The pass-first, defensive minded Mersinger took four shots in the first quarter and made them all, including a pair of 3-pointers, to help the Redwings get the jump on St. Charles East at the Montini Christmas Tournament quarterfinals on Tuesday.

It was the start of a virtuoso performance from Mersinger, who finished with a career-high 16 points on 7 for 12 shooting, eight rebounds, two assists and two steals in Benet’s 70-56 victory.

“She was following the ball on a lot of our high-paint drives and getting open on the baseline,” Kilbride said. “She had a couple of 3s from that left corner in the first half.

“Any time we get good ball movement, we get good shots. We’re all threats, so if we just keep the ball moving, we end up getting good looks.”

Usually, it is Mersinger making the passes to get her teammates open looks. She did plenty of that against the Saints (8-3), but this time the Redwings got her the ball as well.

Mersinger had 10 points in the first quarter as Benet shot out to a 24-13 lead. The Redwings advanced to face Fremd in Friday’s semifinals.

“My teammates, when they drive, they do a great job of finding and passing, so it was all my teammates creating for me, too,” Mersinger said. “They definitely did awesome.

“The ball movement was great. When we move the ball, we become a whole other team, so it was really cool to be a part of. I’m so proud of the team.”

The Redwings (10-1), who have won 10 straight games, used several moving parts to shred St. Charles East’s defense. Senior guard Sailer Jones also had her best offensive showing, scoring a career-high 18 points to go with four assists.

Furman-bound senior forward Emma Briggs also scored 18 points and had seven assists, while Richmond recruit Bridget Rifenburg tallied 11 of her 13 points in the second half to hold off a Saints rally. Both added three assists.

“We knew going into it that all of them were great shooters,” St. Charles East coach Katie Claussner said. “We had to give up one thing. We decided to give up 3s and unfortunately they hit a lot of them.

“That was the first quarter, and then we adjusted and they started just eating us alive from the middle. We were talking about our help-side defense in that second rotation and we were just a little too slow. They made the right pass and they were quick and we were just a second too slow on it.”

Sophomore Brooklyn Schilb scored a game-high 24 points and her sister, senior Addison Schilb, added 16 points for the Saints, who used a 14-2 run to cut the gap to 28-27 with 2:43 left in the second quarter.

Benet answered with a 16-0 run bridging halftime to go up 44-27, but again the Saints rallied, twice coming within six points, the latter on a layup by Addison Schilb that made it 54-48 at the 4:54 mark of the fourth quarter.

But Mersinger made a great cut to the basket and scored on a feed from Rifenburg, then got a defensive rebound and fired a strike to Jones for a layup.

Rifenburg followed with four straight points, then second off another dime from Mersinger, to extend the lead to 62-48.

Jones lauded the play of the 5-foot-7 Mersinger, who amazingly led all players with five offensive rebounds.

“We’ve all been telling her all season to shoot the ball and I think this game especially, she is showing that she’s more comfortable with it,” Jones said. “She becomes a triple threat at that point.

“Her defense is killing, her shooting is there and when she has the ball it definitely opens up the floor for everybody else.”

Including Jones, who is starting to get into a groove of her own.

“We definitely struggled at the beginning of the season with our shooting, me specifically because I came back off an injury,” Jones said. “But kind of the same thing (as Mersinger), I feel like I’m getting more comfortable getting into shooting the ball. And I know if I shoot it too, we’re getting better at tagging and rebounding.”