Girls basketball: Fieldcrest tops rival Eureka to claim 2nd straight title at Lady Bruin Classic

PERU – Fieldcrest girls basketball coach Mitch Neally had a sense that his team wasn’t ready to go before Friday’s championship game in Abbot Vincent Gymnasium against rival Eureka at the St. Bede Academy Lady Bruin Classic.

“We had a shootaround before we came here today and even when we were getting ready to play, I just didn’t have a good vibe that we were ready to go,” Neally said. “We came out very flat, played very undisciplined and were lax on defense. To be honest, I was shocked, but we were up nine at halftime.”

The Knights held a 30-21 advantage at the intermission, but then opened the second half on a game-changing 17-2 run en route to a 61-29 victory over the Hornets (10-5). Fieldcrest (16-0) has now won back-to-back titles at the tournament.

“We talk about handling adversity all the time, and it’s how you handle it,” Neally said. “I got on them a little bit, but they did a good job of getting things going to start the third quarter. Once we got things going, it was full speed ahead.”

Fieldcrest used a pair of 3-pointers from Kaitlin White and five points from Ashlyn May to lead 19-10 after the opening quarter, and six points from Carolyn Megow to hold the aforementioned halftime cushion.

“We did start off the game really slow and I felt like I was just dragging along,” said White, who finished with a game-high 15 points and was named to the all-tournament team along with May and Megow.

“But I think we saw how close the score was at halftime and knew we had to come out in the second half with a lot more energy. We really didn’t talk much at halftime about our energy level ... I think we all just knew we hadn’t played the way we should have in the first half.

“We came out to start the second half doing a better job of getting into transition and also picked up our intensity on the defensive end. The third quarter for sure was Fieldcrest girls basketball.”

White opened the second half with a nifty drive through traffic for a hoop. Then after two of Eureka’s 23 turnovers, May and Riley Burton (six points) did the same before White swished a trey off a fast break to make it 39-21.

“We had some lulls in the first half for sure, but we really came out to start the second half with a better focus on playing good basketball,” Megow said. “Although things weren’t going super-well in the first half, we kept our composure and just kept working on getting our energy up to where it needed to be.

“It was a long week with playing five games, but overall, I thought we played pretty well, and it was nice to win the championship for the second straight year.”

Eureka’s Ellie Cahill snapped the burst with a pair of free throws, but the Knights responded with another White 3-pointer, a steal turned into a layup by Megow and a shot from beyond the arc by Haley Carver to push the lead to 47-23 with two minutes to go in the third.

Megow had 11 points and seven steals, May finished with 10 points, six assists and five steals, Carver added eight points, and Aliah Celis had four points and a team-best eight rebounds.

Cahill paced Eureka with 12 points and eight rebounds, with Ella Ausmus adding nine points and seven rebounds.

Fieldcrest hit 44% (24 of 54) from the field while holding Eureka to just 28% (13 of 43) for the game and just 3 of 15 in the final two quarters.

“Ashlyn and Kaitlin did a good job on Cahill, she came in averaging 20-some points in the first four games here and those two, with help from others, held her to 12 (on 5 of 14 shooting).

“It was a good team effort today and all of this week.”

Fieldcrest returns to action Tuesday at Petersburg PORTA/Ashland-Chandlerville Central (14-0), which will be coming off winning the Riverton Christmas Classic title.