Girls basketball: Newman can’t hold off Mendota surge down the stretch

STERLING – The start and finish weren’t what the Newman girls basketball team was looking for, but in between, the Comets felt they had a lot to be happy about.

After battling back from an early deficit to take a lead in the second half, Newman saw it slip away as Mendota rallied for a 41-36 win in a Three Rivers East game Thursday night.

Both teams struggled early, then finally found their footing in the second quarter. Mendota (3-14, 2-2 TRAC East) led 9-3 just nine seconds into the second, but Newman (1-19, 0-8) fought back with a pair of runout layups by Shannon Kelly, as she got behind the Trojans’ press and Madison Duhon hit her with long passes to cut the deficit to 13-11.

After Reanna Brant’s putback with 3:40 left in the quarter gave Mendota a 15-11 lead, the Comets used a 10-4 lead over the final 3:28 to take a 21-19 lead into halftime. Naitzy Garcia had both baskets for the Trojans, while Ady Waldschmidt scored after corralling a loose ball under the basket, then threw an inbounds pass to Kelly for a layup for a 19-17 Newman lead. Jess Johns scored her first field goal after a pass from Duhon with one second left for the halftime margin.

The Comets picked up where they left off to start the second half. Waldchmidt found Johns down low for a 24-19 Newman lead, then Johns put back her own miss and Waldschmidt went coast-to-coast off a steal for a 28-21 lead with 5:04 left in the third.

“We were getting layups off the press, and also getting turnovers off our defense, and I think that really helped us gain the momentum and some motivation,” Kelly said. “Getting easy layups got us going, and we played with more confidence.”

Another inbounds pass from Waldschmidt to Kelly for a layup, then a Duhon layup after Helen Papoccia stole the ball in the backcourt and passed it up to Waldshmidt, who then connected with a wide-open Duhon, and the Comets led 32-25 with 1:26 left in the period.

“We’ve been working on our press a lot, and denying the ball, being able to anticipate where they’re going to pass it,” Kelly said. “I think that helped tonight, and we have a lot of speed on our team, which gets us in the right spots.”

Newman forced 16 Mendota turnovers in the second and third quarters, and finished the game with 17 steals – seven by Waldschmidt – on 29 Trojan miscues. The Comets also limited Mendota to 8-for-30 shooting in those two periods, and extended the run to 17-6 from the 3:28 mark of the second quarter to the 5:04 mark of the third.

“I thought we played great on D, but credit to them for taking advantage of our turnovers,” Mendota coach John Hansen said. “I don’t know how many times we got a steal and gave it right back to them, and they were able to score off of them.”

But the Comets were also struggling with turnovers, and the mistakes eventually caught up with them. Newman had 11 of its 33 turnovers in the fourth quarter, and Mendota finished the game with 16 steals – including nine from Katie Jenner.

With a seven-point lead and the ball with a minute left in the third, Newman coughed up the possession, and the Trojans scored on a Grace Wasmer putback to cut the Trojans’ deficit to five (32-27) through three quarters. The Comets pushed the lead back to 35-29 after a Johns basket inside with 6:10 to play, but that’s when Mendota made its final run.

On consecutive possessions, Paige Manning and Kya Delao drove the lane and dished to a wide-open Brant on the opposite block for layups. After Johns split a pair of free throws to make it 36-33 with 4:37 left, the Trojans went back to Brant twice more, again with Manning and Delao driving and dishing for layups.

“We’re crazy athletic, and I’m always getting on the team about using our athleticism offensively to push the ball, to drive, to go at the defense. And I’ve been getting on Reanna about staying opposite the ball so we can get dump-downs to her,” Hansen said. “… Finally, at the end, we realized it’s as simple as attacking the basket, Reanna stays on the opposite side and we dump it down to her, and she gets an easy bucket. Once we finally started doing that, she had eight points in the fourth quarter and we were able to come back.”

Brant’s last basket gave Mendota a 37-36 lead with 2:56 remaining; Newman did not score again.

“I think our defense kind of changed,” Johns said. “We started not playing help defense as much, so the girl that was guarding the other post player had to come off and stop the girls driving the lane, and that left [Brant] wide open for layups.”

Jenner dished to Manning for a basket with 1:50 to play for a 39-36 lead, then the Trojans were forced to seal the game from the free-throw line – but even that didn’t come easy. Mendota shot 2-for-9 from the foul line in the fourth quarter, which kept the Comets hanging around longer than the Trojans would have liked, but Newman was unable to capitalize on its chances on the offensive end to put more pressure on Mendota.

“I told the girls at the end, if we make our free throws, this will stop happening and we can relax a little bit,” Hansen said. “I hate the stress they give me, but I love them for taking care of business and getting the job done in the end.”

Brant finished with 14 points, nine rebounds, two steals and a block, and Manning added seven points and three assists for the Trojans. Natalie Bodmer had six points and four rebounds, Garcia chipped in four points, seven rebounds, two assists and two steals, and Delao finished with four points and two assists. Jenner had six rebounds and two assists to go with her nine steals, and Aliza Salinas had five rebounds and two steals.

Johns led the Comets with a 14-point, 20-rebound double-double, and she also had three steals and a block. Kelly added 12 points, five rebounds and two blocks, and Waldschmidt had eight points, four rebounds and five assists to go with her seven steals. Duhon chipped in three rebounds, three assists and two steals, Syrinidie Fowkes finished with three rebounds and four steals, and Papoccia grabbed four rebounds for Newman.

“We just have to push all the way to the end,” Johns said. “At the beginning of the year, we played well for a quarter; we’ve slowly progressed, I think, as the season has gone on. We just have to keep on pushing.”