Rosary runs by St. Francis with convincing 3rd quarter

Certainly, the cracks were already showing as St. Francis tried to stay close to Rosary in Wednesday's Suburban Catholic Conference girls basketball opener for both teams.

Host Rosary led nearly the entire first half and carried a 10-point edge into halftime. And the Royals had shot the ball well too.

But what happened in the third quarter put the game beyond any doubt. Rosary outscored the Spartans 18-2, held St. Francis without a field goal and opened a 49-23 margin and was able to coast home to a 64-35 victory.

"We had a really good team effort," Rosary's Lane Richmond said. "We've really been working on that in practice. I think we did really well with that."

Richmond scored 6 of her 8 points in that third quarter, a period in which the Royals (6-1, 1-0) scored the first 16 points. St. Francis did not score until 1:52 remained in the period on a pair of Jamie Stefely free throws.

"We came out and we knew they weren't going to back down," Richmond said. "We knew that we had to pick up our intensity even more than we already had. And I think we did that."

St. Francis (1-4, 0-1) suffered through a poor shooting second quarter, though that was mirrored by a tough quarter offensively for Rosary. The Spartans were 3-for-13 shooting in the second quarter while Rosary was 3-for-14.

"We missed a lot of easy layups in the first half that could have changed the pace of the ballgame," St. Francis coach Leslie Dehn said. "We struggled on offense. We didn't move a lot on offense. Our kids were standing still."

Rosary's inside presence proved difficult to handle. Jordan Rettig scored 16 points and added 14 rebounds before leaving the game early in the fourth quarter. Katie Eckberg added 8 points and 10 rebounds.

"(Rettig) does a good job rebounding for us," Rosary coach Dave Beebe said. "I don't know that she had the best defensive game but offensively, she was fine for us."

The Royals kept their offense flowing as well. Richmond's points came on sequences where Rosary moved the ball quickly from outside to inside back to either the baseline or wing. When she wasn't scoring in the third quarter, Katie Petrando was; Petrando hit for 6 of her 10 points in the quarter.

"That's what we wanted to do is move the ball better," Beebe said. "I thought the first half was kind of 'one pass and then shoot.' In the second half, we talked about moving better."

Kelly Reinke led St. Francis with 13 points. Stefely added 9 points.

"We're looking for them to respond," Dehn said. "I think we've got some talent. We've got to get them to jell as a team and believe in themselves a little bit. It's still early."