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By Kevin Petrochko
For the Mirror
The Bishop Guilfoyle girls basketball team came into Monday night's District 6 Class 1A quarterfinal matchup against Purchase Line looking to bounce back from its loss to Forest Hills Saturday.
The Lady Marauders completed the task with a resounding 69-14 win at the Pleasant Valley Gymnasium.
"We challenged them after the loss to Forest Hills to come out and really want it," Lady Marauder coach Kristi Kaack said. "I thought we did a really nice job on both ends of the floor tonight."
Bishop Guilfoyle's tight defense held the Lady Dragons to 10 points through three quarters.
"We have a team that we know has a lot of talent," Kaack said. "We said we want to see that hard work put in behind it with loose balls on the ground and stuff, and tonight we really saw that."
Freshman forward Morgan Ruggery led all Guilfoyle scorers with 15 points. Fellow freshman Anberlyn Petrecca contributed 13 points, and sophomore Stella Yeskey finished with 14 points.
"Her (Ruggery) last two games against McCort and Forest Hills were just really great games," Kaack said. "I think that she is just playing really good basketball right now."
Ruggery tallied nine points in the first half.
"I think as a team, we played really well on defense, which gave us good transition looks," Ruggery said. "So, I think that helped us a lot.''
Purchase Line struggled to adapt to the pressure, going scoreless in the first quarter.
"I probably should have done a better job maybe calling some timeouts early on," Lady Dragon coach Greg Mahaffey said. "Ultimately, we just didn't have it tonight."
Jianna Hopkins led all Lady Dragon scorers with six points.
"She's a sharpshooter," Mahaffey said. "Thankfully, she's a junior, so she will give us some more looks next year.''
Guilfoyle has a chance to clinch a state playoff bid with a win on Saturday against Bishop Carroll at home in the semifinals.
"Any year that you're talking about clinching a state playoff game is a good year," Kaack said. "You want to be playing in March."
Clinching a berth in states would mean a lot to the Lady Marauders because they're a young team.
"Yeah, I think that would be really cool," Ruggery said. "Obviously, we're a young team, but we play hard. I hope we get there."
PURCHASE LINE (14): Syster 1 1-2 3, J. Hopkins 2 1-2 6, Weaver 1 0-0 3, Cessna 0 1-2 1, Butz 0 1-2 1. Totals -- 4 4-8 14.
BISHOP GUILFOYLE (69): Adams 2 0-0 5, Querry 3 0-0 7, Ruggery 5 4-4 15, Yeskey 6 2-2 14, Lightner 2 2-2 6, Petrecca 5 3-4 13, Lechner 1 1-2 3, Homan 1 0-1 2 Marasco 1 0-0 2, Zhang 1 0-0 2. Totals -- 27 12-15 69
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Purchase Line 0 3 7 4 - 14
Bishop Guilfoyle 31 15 17 6 - 69
3-point field goals: Purchase Line 2 (Weaver, J. Hopkins), Bishop Guilfoyle 3 (Adams, Querry, Ruggery)
Records: Purchase Line (7-16), Bishop Guilfoyle (22-3).
Officials: Bill Zamboni, Dave Diebert, Mike McDermott.