Girls basketball: St. Bede rallies to beat Bureau Valley, extends winning streak to 13

PERU - Sitting at 11-7 after the Lady Bruins Christmas Classic, St. Bede made a New Year’s resolution.

“We set a New Year’s resolution to hit the weight room and get stronger, work on defense, work on the little things and focus every game,” St. Bede coach Stephanie Mickley said.

The Bruins have not lost since.

St. Bede rallied from an 11-point deficit early in the second quarter Monday to beat Bureau Valley 51-37 on senior night to extend its winning streak to 13 games.

The Bruins, who finish the regular season 24-7, have not lost since Dec. 28 in the holiday tournament. St. Bede is 22-3 since Nov. 27 after a 2-4 start.

“They’re a very disciplined team,” Mickley said. “They do things without us having to ask. They’re really focused, which makes it easy for us to coach them. They have one goal. They’re very connected right now. We try to capitalize on that and help them adjust when things get sideways in a game and they respond.”

St. Bede responded against the Storm after Bureau Valley opened the game on a 12-2 run, led 19-9 after the first quarter and held a 22-11 advantage with 6:32 left in the first half.

“We definitely kept our coach and our crowd on their toes because we didn’t start off as strong. It could be because of senior night,” said St. Bede senior Ali Bosnich, who sang the National Anthem before the game along with classmate Ella Englehaupt. “I think games like that are just so exciting and give us drive to push ourselves to come out better than we were before.”

Bosnich credited Mickley for helping the Bruins turn things around.

“She puts things in perspective when we can’t seem to get it done on the court,” Bosnich said. “She likes to change things up for us and keeps us on our toes, but it always seems to work out and we always pull through.”

The Bruins made a defensive change that turned the tide Monday as they switched to man-to-man defense.

After Kate Salisbury scored on a three-point play with 6:32 left in the second quarter to give the Storm a 22-11 lead, the Bruins held BV to just four points the rest of the half and held the Storm scoreless the first 6:21 of the third quarter.

“We practice a no paint defense, so we just try to prevent them from penetrating in the paint and not getting ourselves in foul trouble,” Mickley said. “That was the name of the game.

“Once we switched to man, we started chipping away. They did a nice job rebounding and we had to step up and do that. The offense started flowing once we started feeding the inside. We realized that was the weakness so we tried to capitalize on that.”

Bosnich got going offensively after a three-point first quarter. She scored five points in the second quarter as the Bruins pulled within 26-24 at halftime.

The senior post exploded for 16 points in the second half. Bosnich gave St. Bede its first lead at 27-26 with a free throw with 6:09 left in the third quarter.

The Bruins led 35-31 after three quarters and Bosnich extended St. Bede’s lead to double digits for the first time with a post bucket on an assist from Ella Hermes for a 41-31 advantage with 6:23 remaining.

“Bosnich is a phenomenal player,” Bureau Valley coach Matt Wasilewski said. “She dominated. We lack height and lack size and they took advantage of that.”

The Storm got off to a strong start as Salisbury knocked down a 3-pointer on their first possession and Taylor Neuhalfen later hit a 3 to give the Storm a 12-2 lead.

“We were pushing the ball up the court and we were taking what they were giving us,” Wasilewski said. “They were giving us the 15-footers and out and we were taking those. The second half, they widened a little bit. I think we thought saw driving lanes and the lanes weren’t there. We kept forcing the ball in and we had a lot of turnovers that we can’t afford to have.

“We played extremely hard. The biggest difference between halves was rebounding. We hit the boards in the first half. We had five people going to the defensive boards. That was not the case in the second half. And the shots we were getting, we weren’t making them, but we weren’t as aggressive shooting the ball from the outside.”

Along with Bosnich’s 24 points, Ashlyn Ehm scored 10 for the Bruins, while Lily Bosnich added eight.

Salisbury led the Storm (14-13) with 13 points and needs two more to reach 1,000 for her career. The Storm play at home Wednesday against Erie-Prophetstown and Thursday against Princeton.

Neuhalfen contributed 11 points for BV.