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Carroll tops BG

EBENSBURG — Bishop Carroll Catholic is the defending District 6 Class 1A girls basketball champion, but the Lady Huskies’ second team might be good enough to make some noise in the playoffs if it entered as a separate entity.

“We push each other hard. We keep it up, too,” BC junior reserve guard Kate Yahner said. “We practice hard enough that games seem to be easy sometimes.”

Carroll’s depth helped turn a surprising first-quarter deficit into another lopsided win for the Lady Huskies on Wednesday night.

The Bishop Carroll bench took the spotlight in the second quarter, scoring 11 points of the team’s 18 points and sparking a defense that held visiting Bishop Guilfoyle scoreless for all eight minutes, and the Lady Huskies went on to post a 57-36 Laurel Highlands Conference Section 1 victory.

After being held scoreless in the first quarter, all-state wing Alyssa Martinazzi finished with 18 points for the Lady Huskies, who also received 11 points from Anna Haigh in running their record to 17-1 overall and 6-0 in the section. Guilfoyle dipped to 10-8 overall and 3-3 in the section, getting 12 points from freshman Sophia Warner and 10 from Aliyah Labriola.

“It’s big. Everyone contributes. Second five. First five. It’s definitely big,” Martinazzi said.

Carroll outscored Guilfoyle in each of the final three quarters after the Lady Marauders finished the first on a 9-0 run to take a 15-10 lead. Then the Lady Huskies turned things up a notch and ran off the next 21 points before Warner made a 3-pointer 54 seconds into the third quarter.

It never was closer than a 12-point game after that.

It was the second straight game Guilfoyle was on the wrong side of a big reversal in the second quarter. The Lady Marauders had an 18-5 lead on Blairsville on Saturday but were outscored 23-7 in the second quarter.

This time, Guilfoyle was 0-for-10 from the floor with six turnovers as the contest turned around.

“They put a good defense against us, and we didn’t do a really good job. That’s a bad combination,” Guilfoyle coach Mark Moschella said.

The Lady Marauders had some success handling Carroll’s shooters with a 2-3 zone early on, but the defense left a gap on the boards, and BC used that to get some easy putbacks and foul shots — Carroll was 17-for-20 at the foul line.

Carroll received its spark by freshman backup Maria McConnell in the second quarter, when she got a friendly bounce on a 3 from the top. Martinazzi followed with another trey before Mara Yahner scored off an offensive rebound. Then Kate Yahner got a steal, finished with a layup and was fouled for a 3-point play.

Kate Yahner scored six in the quarter and finished the game with eight, but she was happier that the Lady Huskies were able to pitch the rare second-quarter shutout.

“Defense is what we do. It’s what we take pride in,” Yahner said. “In the first quarter we were down, but we didn’t hang our heads. We came into the huddle and said we had to pick up the defense.”

Dani Gittings also came off the bench to provide some valuable minutes in the second quarter for BC. The Carroll bench outpointed Guilfoyle’s, 13-2.

While Carroll’s starters and reserves combine to make each other better in practice and to pick up each other in games, Martinazzi said Lady Huskies coach Bob Gongloff fires the team up. It almost sounds like he’s sometimes a common opponent.

“He says things that he knows will motivate us, and we come out and want to prove him wrong. Sometimes he’ll say, ‘You’re letting one girl control you. Can you not take her off the dribble?'” Martinazzi said. “We know we can do it, so we want to go into the game and prove him wrong.”

Gongloff was quick to turn to his bench and let his starters know he was displeased in the first quarter.

“They’ve got to do their job. They’ve got to do what they were taught to do,” Gongloff said. “It shouldn’t have to be that way. Sometimes they need a little push.”

The game also marked the first varsity basketball meeting between sisters Anna Haigh of Carroll and Teresa Haigh of Guilfoyle; they have faced each other in volleyball. Anna, a junior, started. Her sister, a freshman, came off the bench and scored two points.

They are the daughters of Saint Francis University women’s coach Joe Haigh.

“We talked before the game. We know it’s not me against her. It’s Bishop Carroll against Bishop Guilfoyle,” Anna Haigh said.

Game notes: Alivia Borlie had three steals for Carroll. … The Lady Huskies were a 42-14 winner in the junior varsity game. … Both teams return to action Friday when Guilfoyle hosts Forest Hills and Carroll travels to Cambria Heights. The Lady Marauder and Lady Huskies will face each other again on Feb. 5 in Altoona.

BISHOP GUILFOYLE (36): Crider 2 2-2 7, Kelly 0 0-0 0, Warner 3 3-4 12, Labriola 4 2-6 10, Consiglio 2 1-4 5, Haigh 1 0-0 2, Kiesewetter 0 0-0 0, Brunner 0 0-0 0. Totals — 12 8-16 36.

BISHOP CARROLL (57): Borlie 0 1-2 1, Martinazzi 6 5-6 18, Divido 1 3-4 5, Haigh 3 4-4 11, Kutskel 3 3-3 9, M. Yahner 1 0-0 2, K. Yahner 3 1-1 8, McConnell 1 0-0 3, Gittings 0 0-0 0, Rosenberger 0 0-0 0. Totals — 18 17-20 57.

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Bishop Guilfoyle 15 0 14 7 –46

Bishop Carroll 10 18 15 14–57

3-point goals: Bishop Guilfoyle 4 (Warner 3, Crider); Bishop Carroll 4 (McConnell, Martinazzi, K. Yahner, Haigh).

Records: Bishop Guilfoyle (10-8; 3-3 LHAC Section 1); Bishop Carroll (17-1; 6-0 LHAC Section 1).

Officials: Dan Amhrein, Dave Mattis, Brad Eckroth.

JV: Bishop Carroll, 42-14. High scorers–Ally Bagley, Giana Georgiana, BG, 4 each; Maria McConnell, BC, 11.

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