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Berry, Benet respond in time to beat H-F

Just moments after missing a potential game-tying 3-pointer late in Tuesday's showdown with Homewood-Flossmoor, Benet senior guard Ashley Berry got a second chance and ended up having a lot of fun.

Teammate Morgan Demos got a huge offensive rebound after Berry missed her first tying attempt and went right back to the Redwings guard, who this time drained a 3 with 33 seconds left to tie the Tip-Off Tournament game between a pair of 3-0 teams at 36.

That set the stage for Kendall Moriarty's heroics. The junior drove the lane and, after getting fouled, hit both free throws to help Benet close the 41-36 victory by scoring the final 8 points at Naperville Central.

"It was a super-fun game," said Berry, who finished with 7 points and a pair of steals. "I missed the first one but you've just got to keep your head up. Demos found me, it went in. It was a big play. It was fun."

There was not a lot of fun for either offense for most of the game as two stout defenses controlled play. The shots didn't fall like normal for the Redwings, who trailed 22-18 at the half and got down 27-20 following a pair of free throws by the Vikings' Isis Fitch in the third quarter.

But the Redwings, who defeated H-F in the finals of last year's tourney, kept playing hard and kept hanging around close enough to pull out some magic in the final minute. Berry's 3 was big, but not any bigger than Demos' offensive board and pass, and not any more important than Moriarty's late dart to the basket with H-F's 6-foot-2 Grace Hall protecting the paint.

"The last minute of the game is always fun," said Moriarty, who tallied 6 points and 5 rebounds. "It's very scrappy at times. Kendall Holmes had a hot hand tonight - she was feeling it. So coach's plan was to screen her and get her the ball. But they were denying her and I saw the open lane to the basket and I took it."

Redwings coach Joe Kilbride was proud of his players' persistence on a night when the Vikings made things difficult.

"I told them, we've got a really challenging schedule. H-F's a very good team," he said. "So you're going to have some adversity. I was very pleased with the way they responded. We just didn't play very well tonight. We let them take us out of our stuff a little bit."

But with the game on the line, the experienced Benet players came up big. The Vikings turned the ball over seven times in the fourth quarter Tuesday, one more than they did in the first three quarters of play combined.

"I felt that down the stretch we kept playing. There was no fear. We just kept playing," Kilbride said. "We made a few plays. Berry made a big 3, Brooke (Schramek) got that one big steal, Kendal 'Mo' takes the kid (to the basket) ... Demos had a big rebound. Basically the story of the game was we made enough plays down the stretch."

Trailing 38-36 with the clock winding down, the Vikings dribbled over the sideline under heavy pressure for a turnover and Holmes then sealed the win by making good on three of four technical foul shots with 3.1 seconds remaining.

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