Girls basketball: Hall starts conference play strong with rout of St. Bede

SPRING VALLEY – One of the Hall girls basketball team’s goals this season is to compete for the Three Rivers Conference East Division championship.

The Red Devils took a strong first step toward that goal Monday as they rolled to a 52-33 victory over rival St. Bede.

“The girls want a chance to play for the conference [title] and you have to win these home games and win these rivalry games to do it, so it was good to get out and get a win,” Hall coach T.J. Orlandi said.

Hall faces an early conference challenge Thursday as the Red Devils travel to defending conference champion Princeton.

“We have another big one Thursday with another rivalry game at Princeton,” Orlandi said. “They were conference champs last year, and we’ve been playing them tough last year and over the summer. It’s good to get this one and kind of be on a positive note.”

Monday’s game was tight early as the Bruins hit a pair of 3-pointers to take a 6-4 lead, but Hall rallied to tie it on a 3-pointer by McKenna Christiansen before taking the lead for good at 10-8 on a drive to the basket by Christiansen.

Christiansen hit a pair of free throws and Promise Giacometti hit two jumpers down the stretch in the first quarter to give the Red Devils a 16-9 lead after eight minutes.

“Our defense was kind of rough at first, but then we got it together and tightened it up,” Christiansen said. “We played well together and we looked to push it up the court, which was very good.”

The Red Devils opened the second quarter on an 8-0 run to extend their lead to 24-9 before Brianna Torres scored St. Bede’s lone field goal of the second quarter.

“I was really happy offensively and defensively,” Orlandi said. “I thought we had a lot of energy out there. At the start they hit a couple 3s and it was kind of tight for the first half of that first quarter, and then we went on a run and in the second quarter and we held them to three points and extended that lead.”

Hall pushed its lead to 33-12 at halftime with seven points in the final 36.2 seconds of the quarter.

Christiansen hit two free throws then stole the ball and passed to Haylie Pellegrini, who was fouled on a layup and converted a three-point play. Giacometti hit a jumper with 1.9 seconds left to cap the run.

“They missed some free throws, and we made them pay on the other end,” Orlandi said. “We got out and got some baskets and pushed that lead over 20 and that’s hard when you’re down like that to come out in the second half, especially when you’re on the road.”

The Red Devils extended their lead to 50-18 after three quarters to enact the running clock in the fourth quarter.

St. Bede, which was playing without leading scorer Ali Bosnich because of injury, had a solid start with 3-pointers from Ella Hermes and Kristal De La Torre in the first 1:04. But the Bruins couldn’t keep the momentum offensively with only 12 points over the next 22:56.

St. Bede outscored Hall 15-2 in the fourth quarter.

“We came out strong. They were relaxed, they watched their spacing and they shot with confidence,” St. Bede coach Stephanie Mickley said. “Then we just kind of lost our focus, made some turnovers and defensive errors and got down on ourselves. We started showing life in the fourth quarter. They didn’t give up and they hustled, and that’s what I asked them to do.”

Mickley said the Bruins expect Bosnich back soon.

“I had a talk with the girls that she is a big part of the team and she brings a lot of life for the team, but for now we have to regroup,” Mickley said. “We have to create other points and create the tenacity that she brings. She’s been a very good asset on the bench, encouraging the girls. We have to learn to function as a team in different ways.”

Christiansen led the Red Devils (3-2) with 20 points, while Giacometti and Toni Newton scored 10 points each.

Hermes paced the Bruins (2-3) with 14 points.