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NEW LENOX – On nights when both offenses struggle, the team that wins usually is determined by who executes at critical times.
In Monday’s nonconference matchup between the girls basketball teams from Providence Catholic and Joliet Catholic Academy, the defenses dominated, and both teams made only 10 field goals.
Providence started to pull away by the end of the third quarter and withstood a challenge by Joliet Catholic before going on to capture a 36-29 victory.
The Celtics improved to 22-7 with the win and set a record for wins in a season, with games remaining against Marist and Marian Catholic before the postseason begins.
“If you look at the first half, we missed all of those layups and free throws, and everyone was a little tight,” Celtics coach Eileen Copenhaver said. “We tell the kids that you’re going to have nights like that, so you need to keep relying on your defense.
“It wasn’t a pretty game if you look at points, but it’s different if you look at the defense by both teams and both playing really hard. I tell them that we’ll have nights like this where you have to find a way to win. I thought we made some nice adjustments. When we played last time, two of their kids got a lot of points on us, but we did a good job of getting stops when we needed to.”
JCA (14-16) led, 4-3, after one quarter and had a 19-17 halftime lead. After getting a putback basket by Jasmine Brown (15 points) early in the third quarter to make it 21-17, the Angels only scored once more in the third quarter and trailed, 29-23, with eight minutes left.
After the Celtics expanded their lead to 32-23 early in the fourth quarter, the Angels got a 3-point play from Brown, a layup by Charlie Kinsella and another free throw by Brown pulled the Angels to within 32-29, but they were unable to score again.
Providence sealed the win with four free throws down the stretch from Ashley Raymer, who also scored 15 points and added six rebounds. Other top scorers for the Celtics were Lauren Knight (eight points), Megan Duzansky (six points, six rebounds) and Claire McGrath (five points) while Katie Rost added six rebounds.
“We knew from past experience that it’s always hard to beat the same team twice,” Raymer said. “We knew they’d have fans, and would do different things out there. I missed a lot of free throws at the start of the game, and we all missed a lot of pretty open layups, so we knew that we had to clean that up. It’s been a pretty tough season, so breaking the record for the most wins feels pretty good and gives us a good confidence boost going into the playoffs.”
JCA also received four points each from Alina Schlageter and Breanna Ciemny, while Mia Bertino and Jenna Hernandez each had six rebounds.
“The biggest thing is that they got to the rim a little bit better than we did,” JCA coach Jim O’Brien said. “And they had a big free throw advantage, and when you’re struggling for offense that becomes a big factor.”