Saturday,
March 8, 2014
By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer
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Amanda Lewis had a huge fourth quarter finished with 16 points as St. Dominic Academy reached the Non-Public North A state sectional semifinals for the first time in school history with a 55-35 win over St. Vincent on Friday in Newark. |
NEWARK - As the St. Dominic Academy players walked to the locker room for halftime, they had plenty of reason to give up the fight. After several weeks of turmoil both on and off the court along with being down five points on the road against St. Vincent, nobody would have faulted the Blue Devils for not responding favorably to the type of adversity they faced recently. But with their season on the line, the Blue Devils made a pact that if they were going to lose that it was going to be on their terms.
All the adversity that they faced in the recent weeks has only made them stronger. That showed in the second half of Friday's Non-Public North A quarterfinal when they bounced back from a sluggish first half with their best half of the season in the most important half of the season.
Danielle Wilbert's 3-pointer put the Blue Devils ahead to stay in the midst of a 10-0 run and Amanda Lewis came up huge in the fourth quarter as sixth-seeded St. Dominic Academy advanced to the Non-Public North A semifinals for the first time in school history with a 55-35 triumph over No. 3 St. Vincent.
"It came down to defense and everybody stepped up," said Lewis. "Our defense gets our offense going. We hustled harder and got some turnovers that got us on a run."
Both teams struggled out of the gate until Gabby Fortune nailed a 17-foot jumper from the wing to give St. Dom's a 10-7 lead after one quarter. St. Vincent got things going in the second quarter and leaned on senior point guard Tia Taylor to get them going. She hit a pair of 3s, then fed Courtnee Williams for a layup as the Lady Panthers went on a 10-2 run to end the half and take a 21-16 lead.
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Covetnee Williams and St. Vincent had a halftime lead. |
St. Dom's was reeling heading into the locker room and for more reasons than just their first-half shooting woes. Former head coach Dave Wunsch resigned just before the state playoffs began with John Hester taking over in the interim. It was a crisis situation for the Blue Devils going into the states, but after earning their first playoff win in 12 years on Wednesday against Kent Place, the Blue Devils felt like the worst was behind them.
"A lot of stuff went on, but we could only focus and control what happened on the court," said St. Dominic junior guard Hannah Johnson, who scored her 1,000th point in the win over Kent Place. "(Hester) said there wasn't a magic plan for our success, we just had to work harder than we were working. If wanted to keep our season alive, we had to get to more loose balls than they did and do a much better job on the boards. Every year in the states, it was one round and out for us. We already exceeded our expectations so we might as well just go for it."
Right from the first possession of the second half, Johnson and Lewis smothered the Panthers at the top of the half-court trap. They forced three straight turnovers to kickstart the crucial 10-0 run. The last of those turnovers led to a 3-pointer by Wilbert that put St. Dom's back in front 24-21.
The lead was still three heading into the fourth quarter and Shannon Hester's layup quickly bumped the lead up to nine. Taylor responded with a deep three to cut the lead to 37-31 with 4:48 to play, but from there on, Lewis almost single-handedly shut down the Panthers' attack. Over the next three minutes, she had four steals and turned them all into layups during a 14-0 run that put the game away.
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Gabby Fortune and St. Dominic will get a home game in the Non-Public North A semifinals. |
"We turned the ball over way too much in the second half and you can't get those possessions back," said St. Vincent head coach Carol Alm. "We had a good rhythm going at the end of the second quarter. I thought we played hard and kept fighting. But we once we had those three turnovers right in a row to start the second half, we never found that rhythm again."
Lewis and Johnson each finished with game-highs of 16 points and six steals for St. Dominic Academy. Hester did some dirty work on the boards and recorded a double-double of 10 points and 12 rebounds. Taylor led the way for St. Vincent with 15 points.
The last thing that the Blue Devils expected both before the season and especially before the state tournament was to be in the section semifinals for the first time in school history. With No. 2 seed Paramus Catholic being upset by Mt. St. Dominic, St. Dom's will now get a home game for the right to play in the Non-Public A section final. But with all they have been through in recent weeks the Blue Devils are simply happy to be playing together, no matter where it is.
"This is just great for these kids and I can't tell you how proud I am of them," said John Hester, St. Dom's interim coach. "We were getting outworked in the first half and we didn't want to go out that way. If we lost this game because we played hard and just got beat, I could have handled it. But I knew we were better and could have played harder than how we played in the first half. We worked so much harder in the second half and it showed by how well we played. We're enjoying the ride right now and we don't want it to end.”
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