Meritorious Mount effort falls short, GA wins 54-46

Posted 12/10/18

Mount St. Joe sophomore Grace Niekelski (with ball) looks to get off a shot as another 10th-grader, GA’s Becca Booth, looms over her. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption] by Tom Utescher Facing a …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Meritorious Mount effort falls short, GA wins 54-46

Posted

Mount St. Joe sophomore Grace Niekelski (with ball) looks to get off a shot as another 10th-grader, GA’s Becca Booth, looms over her. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption]

by Tom Utescher

Facing a talented and deep Germantown Academy hoops squad last Friday evening, visiting Mount St. Joseph held a one-point lead a few minutes into the third quarter. The host Patriots moved ahead for good with a 9-1 run and went on to win, 54-46, behind a 24-point performance by junior guard Jaye Haynes.

The Mount Magic, who received 18 points from sophomore guard Grace Niekelski, were playing in their season opener following a pair of scrimmages, while Germantown came into the contest with a 2-0 record. The Mount had had an opportunity to scout GA, but not the other way around.

The match-up between the schools came in a semifinal game in GA’s December Classic tournament, and was preceded by Shipley School’s 62-23 cruise past the Peddie School in the other semifinal.

Second-year Mount head coach Jim Roynan said, “A lot of what we’re trying to accomplish this year is to get the girls to believe that they have the skill to compete at this level, so I was happy to see that tonight. I hated the fact that we lost but I loved their effort, and if we can get that against every team we play, we’ll be fine.”

Sherri Retif, now in her 21st season as GA head coach, noted “In the first half they really made us work on offense, and we didn’t make them work that hard. We did a much better job of making them earn their points in the second half. They’re a very well-coached team, fundamentally sound.”

Neither team scored in the first two minutes, as two missed free throws for GA portended a mediocre performance at the free throw line for the Patriots throughout the game. Niekelski, got the Magic out to a 5-0 lead with a three-pointer from the top of the key and a lay-up in transition.

GA broke the ice just over three minutes in, when junior Elle Stauffer grabbed a defensive rebound and went the length of the floor for a lay-up.

“We got some open looks early in the game, and we just missed lay-ups,” GA’s Retif observed.

“We came out with even more effort than I thought we would,” said Roynan. “You can’t really predict that from just watching the girls playing against each other in practice.”

In the middle of the period, Haynes’ first three-pointer got GA even at 7-7, and a second one moved the hosts ahead. Junior point guard Maddie Vizza also hit from beyond the arc, and Stauffer and junior Maddie Burns each added a basket from the paint. Germantown led 17-9 before Niekelski bagged a “three” from the right wing in the final minute, making it 17-12 at the quarter.

Mount junior Taylor Sistrunk and senior Lauren Cunningham each put in a lay-up and juniors Kelly Rothenberg and Lauren Vesey deposited two free throws apiece to fuel an 8-2 surge that gave the visitors a 20-19 edge. The teams remained pretty much neck-and-neck through the rest of the second round, until a bucket from the paint in the final minute by sophomore center Becca Booth gave the Patriots a 27-25 halftime advantage. At the break, the Mount’s Niekelski led all scorers, with 14 of her 18 total points already in the book.

After grabbing a rebound, Jaye Haynes of Germantown Academy dribbles away from a fellow junior, Mount St. Joseph’s Audrey Bryce. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption]

The second half opened with a three-pointer by the Magic’s Vesey, and after Stauffer drove for GA’s first field goal of the third quarter, Sistrunk popped in a short jumper that had Mount St. Joe’s up 30-29 two minutes into the half.

GA’s lone senior, Rachel Balzer, a shooting guard signed to George Mason University, has been face-guarded and held scoreless up to this point, but now she hit a trey from the left wing. Vizza hit another one from the same side, and then four free throws awarded the Mount netted only one point, a toss by Rothenberg that made it 35-31 in the Patriots’ favor.

GA’s Stauffer matched that foul shot, then a successful baseline drive by MSJ’s Niekelski was sandwiched between two buckets by the Patriots’ Haynes, a lay-up and a midrange jumper. When Balzer netted her second “three” of the quarter, Germantown reached a 10-point lead at 43-33.

Vesey gave the Mounties the last two points of the third period (which ended 43-35) and Rothenberg scored the first two of the fourth round. Following an impressive short jumper for GA by an airborne Stauffer off of an inbounds pass, Niekelski put in a runner for the visitors, who were then six points behind a little over two minutes into the final frame.

The Magic then saw their deficit double in less than 30 seconds as Haynes drilled back-to-back three-pointers for the Patriots to make it 51-39.

“They got girls open and they made shots,” said Mount St. Joseph’s Roynan. “Jaye was tremendous from the three-point line, and that really was where the game was decided.”

“She was in the zone,” Retif agreed. “She was six-for-eight from the three-point line, and in the second half we put her on their number 22 (Niekelski) and Jaye pretty much shut her down. We also had everybody else ready in help-side defense to deny their girl direct drives to the basket.”

After the Mount’s Rothenberg scored off a rebound with around three-and-a-half minutes left, GA called time-out with a 10-point advantage, 51-41. Not long after play resumed, the Magic fouled several times to put the Patriots into the bonus. This worked out pretty well for the visitors, as GA would harvest only three of a possible 10 points from the free throw line in the last two minutes.

However, the Mount offense was only able to generate five points down the stretch. GA’s final three points came on three-for-four foulshooting by Vizza.

She finished with eight points, while Stauffer scored 11 and Balzer had six. Backing up Niekelski’s performance for the Mount were Vesey, with a dozen points, and Rothenberg, with 10.

UPDATE: Ahead by eight points at halftime and also at the end of the third quarter, GA doubled its lead in the final period of the December Classic championship game on Saturday, defeating Shipley, 50-34. Stauffer exploded for an 18-point, 17-rebound double-double in the first meeting between the teams since Shipley’s 55-52 win over the Patriots last February in the semifinals of the Pa. Independent Schools tournament.

Balzer (five rebounds) and Haynes each added nine points for the victors, while Shipley received 18 points from Lauren Ross, a senior guard signed to St. Joseph’s University.

Earlier in the day, Mount St. Joseph levelled its record at 1-1 by knocking off Peddie in the tournament’s consolation game, 39-27. The Magic’s balanced scoring attack included nine points apiece from Niekelski, Vesey and Rothenberg, and seven from Sistrunk. Cunningham and her senior classmate Maggie Zipfel delivered two and three points, respectively.

sports