Girls Basketball: Kendall Moriarty’s game-winner on Senior Night keeps Benet unbeaten

LISLE – Kendall Moriarty had never scored a game-winning basket at Benet before Wednesday’s crucial East Suburban Catholic Conference game against Saint Viator.

What better time to finally do it than on your own Senior Night in Lisle?

Moriarty’s layup with 13 seconds left proved to be the difference as the Redwings remained perfect with a thrilling 40-38 victory over the Lions.

“So far we’ve done a really good job as a team and Senior Night just tops off the whole kind of season,” Moriarty said. “We’re still undefeated going into Saturday (against Marian Central) and we’ve just got to beat them to be the (East Suburban Catholic) champions.”

Junior Lenee Beaumont was in the midst of being trapped with the game deadlocked at 38-38 when she was able to fire a pass to Moriarty.

“Thankfully Lenee saw me down there and she’s good enough to make that hard pass and she did,” Moriarty said. “All I had to do was finish it. It was mostly Lenee. She had the good pass, and it felt good to finally get that lead.”

Beaumont, who led the Redwings (9-0, 6-0) with 10 points, simply made a big play in the clutch.

“In the moment I knew I was getting trapped and it was either that or lose the ball so I was just going for it and threw it to Kendall,” she said. “When she caught it I knew she was going to make it.

Great teams find ways to win even when they go unscripted and are forced to improvise.

“That was just kids making plays,” Benet coach Joe Kilbride said. “Thank God.”

Kilbride honored seniors Jackie Ernsting, Emma Parney, Reagan Rodenbostle, Margaret Snyder and Moriarty by giving them the starting nod.

After a sluggish start from both teams, the Lions jumped ahead 12-6 after one quarter. The struggle to score really never left the gym on Wednesday and the defensive pressure certainly had a lot to do with it.

“I think both teams could’ve shot the ball a little bit better and I think we were definitely a little bit cold from the outside,” Saint Viator coach Jason Raymond said. “But I think Benet could say the same thing about themselves because it was a defensive battle.”

Saint Viator (7-2, 4-2) went ahead 20-10 on a Joy Bergstrom 3-pointer midway through the second quarter, but the Redwings closed the half on a 7-0 run and then took 21-20 lead early in the second half on a Beaumont 3-pointer and a free throw from Margaret Temple.

The Lions were hoping to send the game to OT where they’ve gone 3-1 already this season, but Joy Bergstrom split 2 free throws with 1.9 seconds left and Benet’s Morgan Demos snagged the miss, a career-high 15th rebound, to seal the victory.

“To beat a team like Benet and a team like theirs this year, we’ve got to make plays throughout the game,” Raymond said. “We had too many minutes throughout the game where we didn’t make plays.”

Moriarty, Rodenbostle and Temple each scored seven points apiece for the Redwings.

For Saint Viator, Morrisey and Joy Bergstrom had 10 points apiece while Mia Bergstrom drained three 3-pointers to finish with nine points.