Lady Bruins hold off Lady Devils

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St. Bede junior Kelsey Moravec reaches out for a rebound against Hall’s Kelle Nett Tuesday night at the Academy. Moravec’s free-throws sealed the Lady Bruins’ 34-33 win over Hall. (BCR photo/Chris Yucus)

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PERU — It was not always pretty, especially in the first half when both teams combined to score a total of 21 points, but a down to the wire finish more than made up for it as the Lady Bruins of St. Bede held on to post a one point, 34-33, victory over the visiting Lady Devils of Hall Tuesday night.

After three quarters of offensive stalemate that saw Hall hold a 20-18 advantage, both squads came alive a bit offensively in the final frame.

The Lady Bruins launched a 7-0 run starting with 3:30 to play, as junior guard Emily Considine knocked down her second three of the quarter, Kelsey Moravec notched a putback basket, and Jillian Stariha added a pair of free throws to give St. Bede a 31-25 advantage with just under a minute left.

Hall sophomore Jaclyn Kain took over on the Lady Devils’ next possession working her way into the paint and draining a clutch pull-up jumper to bring Hall within four. Forced to foul, Hall tagged Stariha immediately after the Lady Bruin inbounds pass, and the junior knocked down the first of two bonus free-throws to put St. Bede up five, 32-27.

Determined to go down fighting, Hall breathed new life into the contest with a clutch three-pointer from the right side from Hillary Klein, drawing the Lady Devils within two with 26 ticks left.

After a Hall timeout, the Lady Devils once again grabbed Stariha, but Stariha did not convert the front end of the bonus opportunity, and the Red Devils went back to work.

Once again, Kain muscled her way into the lane with the ball, establishing herself in the post and taking a short shot that spent what seemed like eon’s bouncing on the rim before falling off and into the outstretched arms of Moravec, who drew a quick Hall foul.

Moravec stepped up to the line and deposited a crucial pair of clutch free-throws to up the Lady Bruin advantage to four, 34-30, with 8.8 seconds to play.

With time running out, Klein once again dialed up some heroics from behind the three-point arc, launching another bomb that fell into the net as the buzzer sounded bringing the Lady Devils close, but not close enough, as they dropped the one-point decision.

“Kelsey hitting both of them (free throws) that’s huge,” said Lady Bruins coach Tom McGunnigal. “We definitely needed that, it gave us a four-point lead, and they come out and hit a three at the buzzer and we win by one.”

Considine led the Lady Bruins (21-7) with 12 points in the contest, all coming off of three-pointers. McGunnigal said that the junior guard’s pair of bombs in the fourth quarter were crucial to getting the win.

“I thought Emily Considine was huge for us,” McGunnigal said. “That was amazing. That was the heart of a shooter right there, ‘I’m going to put it up, and I’m going to knock it down’.”

For Hall (7-20), Klein led the way with 17 points on the night, including eight in the fourth, and Kain joined her in double-digit scoring with 11.

“Hillary hit some big, big threes ... she had two threes when we really needed them bad, she played great,” said Hall coach Dave Kain.

“I thought we played hard, we only had 17 turnovers and for us that’s a good job,” said Kain. “Our defense played great, I though we played real good defense, especially in the first half, our defense kept them from scoring.”

Dropping another close contest, the fourth time this season the Lady Devils have lost by a single point, was tough Kain said.

“It’s a hard one, to lose a one-point game again,” Kain said. “That’s our season, we just can’t get over the hump.”

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