Girls Basketball: Nebraska commit Kendall Moriarty, Benet hold off Carmel

MUNDELEIN – Kendall Moriarty had just drawn a foul when she cradled the basketball, hunched over in a lane and needed a good 10 seconds to catch her breath.

The Benet senior guard certainly deserved the respite near the end of her team’s 52-44 win over host Carmel on Saturday afternoon.

“I looked toward our bench, and my coach (Joe Kilbride) asked me if I wanted him to call a timeout,” the masked, 6-foot Redwing — sitting courtside and smiling with her eyes — said after the hard-fought East Suburban Catholic Conference girls basketball clash. “I told him, ‘No. We might need it later.’ "

Benet (7-0, 4-0), which led 28-15 at the half and 34-17 early in the third quarter, needed Moriarty, who had eight points, four rebounds and two steals, in every second of a frenetic 19-second span after a scrappy Carmel (2-7, 1-3) crew had cut the visitors’ advantage to 45-36 on senior guard Emma Berg’s 3-pointer with 4:10 left in the fourth quarter.

Moriarty was indeed busy in a breathless action that covered four possessions. She hit the court to force a turnover by poking a loose ball to a teammate, popped right back up and hustled to score at the other end of the court, collected a steal on Carmel’s ensuing possession and sprinted three-quarters of the court before getting fouled.

Moriarty then split two throws, giving Benet a 50-38 lead — and some breathing room.

“Our team has a bunch of players who hustle,” said Moriarty, who admitted she was out of tip-top condition because she had nursed a recent quad injury. “Our hustle created momentum today.”

So did their offensive rebounding, particularly during one critical possession early in the fourth quarter. Benet, up 41-34, grabbed four successive offensive boards — two by junior guard Margaret Temple, one by Moriarty and another by junior center Morgan Demos — before Demos, who had nine points and nine rebounds, capped the busy sequence with a putback.

“Benet is the gold standard of our conference,” said Carmel coach Ben Berg, whose Corsairs refused to let Benet’s sharp shooting from distance (seven 3-pointerrs through a little more than two quarters) deflate them and handled Benet’s pressure, including its jump-trap defense. “Our kids played hard and were resilient. We got energy from our bench, and all of them were fully engaged.

“We’re getting better. I’m encouraged.”

Sophomore guard Lenee Beaumont paced the Redwings with 14 points. Temple tallied seven points, and senior guard Reagan Rodenbostel (six points) netted two of Benet’s five 3-pointers in the first half.

Junior post player Grace Sullivan and sophomore guard Kyla Smith scored nine points apiece to lead Carmel. The Corsairs’ standout 6-5 sophomore, Jordan Wood, snared a team-high four rebounds but was limited to five points. Foul trouble and Moriarty’s defense thwarted one of the ESCC’s top players.