IC Catholic Prep survives St. Edward's furious charge
Sometimes, it really is about how you start. Just as long as you take care of business at the end.
That was IC Catholic Prep's challenge Thursday in a Metro Suburban tilt with visiting St. Edward.
The Knights charged out to a 15-1 lead at the end of the first quarter, then outscored the Green Wave 16-2 in the third. But they had to hold on, as St. Edward dropped a flurry of 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to cut the deficit to just one with 1:10 to go.
But IC Catholic Prep hit the front ends of three free throw attempts in the final 26.8 seconds to prevail 41-37 and improve to 6-12 and 2-4 in conference.
More importantly, though, it avenged a 52-50 loss to St. Edward on Nov. 27.
"It's a very big win," said sophomore guard Alia Johnson, who co-led the Knights with 10 points with Claire Wagner and also added 11 rebounds (5 offensive). "Especially coming up from our losses, it's a really great motivator for the next games, in that we still work hard and as a team we can do a lot of things together."
Johnson's free throw with 2.7 seconds left set the final score and iced the win, but it wasn't easy heading down the stretch.
Entering the fourth quarter with a 34-15 lead, it looked as if ICCP would cruise to victory. But St. Edward torpedoed that idea with a 14-2 run to start the period to cut the deficit to 36-29.
After a Johnson layup, the Green Wave crafted another 8-0 spurt, highlighted by back-to-back 3s by Mia Castro at the 2:02 mark and Samantha Ottinger at 1:10.
Suddenly, the Knights were up only 38-37, and they were sweating.
But they escaped thanks in part to a baseline turnover by St. Edward with 32 seconds left and a jump ball off a missed shot attempt by freshman Brooke Biggins with 14.7 seconds remaining.
From there, junior Hannah Johnson and Alia Johnson hit 1 of 2 freebies to ice the game.
"I think we wanted revenge for losing at their court, and this was our home court, and we were definitely determined to win from the start," said Hannah Johnson, who finished with 5 points and 4 boards.
While the win was a big one for the Knights, coach Kelsey James would have preferred a consistent four-quarter effort instead of Thursday's seesaw.
"Most of our losses have been extremely close because we haven't put four quarters together," James said. "We're still trying to send the message, you're a very good team, when you play consistent."
St. Edward (7-10, 4-3) was led in scoring by Ottinger with 9, including three 3-pointers, two coming in the big fourth quarter, where the Green Wave outscored ICCP 22-7.
"It was frustrating (to lose) because we did beat them earlier this season," Ottinger said. "But we did have good second and fourth quarters and we pulled it together in the fourth quarter, which was really good."
"I think if we came out stronger in the first and we would have scored more, we would have had a better chance at winning," added Castro, who scored 7.