1A girls basketball: St. Bede overcomes fouls, Amboy to win Marquette Regional title

OTTAWA – By early in the second quarter of the Class 1A Marquette Regional final Friday, the St. Bede girls basketball team was in significant foul trouble.

Leading scorer Ali Bosnich, who had 23 points and 20 rebounds in the semifinal, went to the bench with three fouls with 5:35 left in the half. By halftime, fellow starter Lili McClain and sixth man Quinn McClain also had three fouls each, while Ashlyn Ehm had a pair of fouls as the Bruins were whistled for 14 in the first half.

But No. 2-seeded St. Bede had different players step up, and the Bruins changed their defense as they maintained a lead from start to finish to beat No. 3 Amboy 50-39.

“It feels good,” second-year St. Bede coach Stephanie Mickley said. “These girls deserve it. They have worked hard all season. They come in early. They shoot. They go the extra mile. I’m just ecstatic for them that they were able to pull this off.”

It is the Bruins’ first regional championship since 2020.

“It feels really good,” Ehm said. “I’m just super proud of my team.”

St. Bede (26-7), which has won 15 games in a row, advances to the Gardner-South Wilmington Sectional, where it will face Chicago Morgan Park Academy at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

“These girls deserve it. They have worked hard all season. They come in early. They shoot. They go the extra mile. I’m just ecstatic for them that they were able to pull this off.”

—  Stephanie Mickley, St. Bede coach

The Warriors (26-4) beat Unity Christian 63-32 in the Illinois Lutheran Regional on Friday.

“That’s going to be a tough one,” Mickley said. “We’ll be doing our homework this weekend and getting prepared as best we can, and we’ll see what happens.”

The Bruins led 11-8 after the first quarter Friday and held a 16-10 advantage after an Ehm bucket with 5:48 left in the second quarter when Bosnich went to the bench for the remainder of the half.

Despite Bosnich being out, St. Bede did not allow the Clippers to cut into the lead and instead increased it.

Ehm scored twice more in the half, and Quinn McClain added a bucket as the Bruins built a 22-11 lead before a 3-pointer by Addison Pertell with 11.6 seconds left cut St. Bede’s lead to 22-14 at halftime.

Ehm stepped into the lead scoring role with Bosnich out, scoring a game-high 19 points.

“Without (Bosnich), we have me in the paint,” Ehm said. “In practice, we always push each other hard. When she’s out, I can step in.

“I did my best getting open, posting up and rebounding.”

Sophomore Savannah Bray also provided a boost off the bench as she scored seven points, including a bucket to end the third quarter and another basket early in the fourth. Lili McClain also chipped in eight points. Ali Bosnich finished with nine points.

“Savannah played a huge role inside,” Mickley said. “She hasn’t seen a ton of time, but she’s very smooth on her moves. She made some nice shots. She got boards. She’s got a ton of potential. I’m super proud of her.”

The Clippers came in looking to get St. Bede in foul trouble, and while they accomplished that goal they couldn’t capitalize on it. Amboy struggled to shoot from the floor (21%, 13 of 62), the 3-point line (15.4%, 4 of 26) and the free-throw line (41.2%, 7 of 17).

“Our shooting was horrible,” Amboy coach Mike McCracken said. “You can’t beat a team that big without shooting. We didn’t shoot free throws. We have nights like that shooting, but you can’t have nights like that in a regional final.

“We did what we wanted as far as getting them in foul trouble, because we thought they were pretty aggressive, but we couldn’t do anything with it.”

Amboy (24-7) did manage to cut its deficit to four points at 24-20 on a putback by Emily Sachs with 5:46 left in the third, but the Bruins immediately countered with a pair of free throws by Ehm and a basket by Ali Bosnich.

“We made the shots and made a run, but they answered us back pretty fast, and we didn’t have an answer for them on defense,” McCracken said.

Being in foul trouble, the Bruins made a defensive adjustment, going to a box-and-one with Lily Bosnich on Pertell.

“We went to a box-and-one to try to contain them and try to get position on the boards better,” Mickley said. “We tried to play clean defense.

“It was hard, because the flow of what was getting called changed a little bit. We just told them keep the ball high, protect the ball to pull them out of the zone to make them work when we got the lead.”