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BAR HARBOR – Poor shooting, turnovers and missed free throws. A lot of missed free throws.
Still, the John Bapst girls basketball team made just enough foul shots in the fourth quarter to earn its 16th straight victory in a big matchup Monday night.
Rebounding and good defense were the keys for the Crusaders of Bangor as they held off MDI 37-35 at Bernard Parady Gymnasium, picking up their second win over the Trojans this season.
“It’s really exciting,” said Bapst junior guard Eve Jordan, who scored 10 points, including a team-high three field goals. “We’ve already clinched first in the Big East, but we just wanted to come in here and get things done.”
Bapst won the first game 36-34.
Senior forward Lauren Nichols paced Bapst (16-1) with 12 points, including an 8-for-10 effort at the free-throw line, and 14 rebounds. Her shooting was among the Crusaders’ best at the line, although Nichols did hit just two of her 10 field-goal attempts.
Hillary Laferriere chipped in with 10 points and 11 rebounds.
MDI’s Kelsey Stratton had an open 3-pointer with less than two seconds left, but her shot hit the rim and bounced off at the buzzer. Had she hit the shot and won the game, the Crusaders would have had to have looked at their free-throw shooting as they excelled in other aspects of the game. Bapst played excellent defense, limiting the Trojans to one 3-pointer and 15-for-51 shooting and outrebounded the Trojans 36-31.
Those numbers helped negate a 19-for-39 effort at the free-throw line.
“Coach told us we’re going to shoot free throws all day in practice tomorrow,” Nichols said after a grimace when she heard the free-throw totals.
Jordan missed two free throws with 6.8 seconds remaining and a 2-point lead. The misses could have been huge as MDI’s Amethyst Cousins grabbed the rebound of Jordan’s second miss and Trojan coach Brent Barker called a timeout to set up a final shot.
Stratton, one of the Trojans’ better shooters, inbounded the ball to Lindsey Lewis who got it back to Stratton behind the 3-point line on the left side. Stratton got off a shot in plenty of time but missed.
“We knew they were going to get it to one of their 3-point shooters,” Jordan said. “Our coaches said not to foul the 3-point shooters. So I think there was some miscommunication [on how open Stratton was] and not wanting to foul.”
The Crusaders used a 9-0 run in the second half to take a 16-8 lead at halftime, but MDI shot better in the second half and whittled the lead down to 18-15 in the third and 35-33 after Cousins scored off a steal with about 34 seconds remaining.
Nichols responded with two free throws, followed by two Lindsey Lewis free throws with 18 seconds remaining. That was the end of the scoring as Jordan missed her foul shots and Stratton’s 3-pointer was off the mark.
Cousins, who has been averaging 17 points per game, struggled to a team-high 10 points on 5-for-18 shooting. She didn’t get to the free-throw line at all and the Trojans only took eight free-throw attempts.
“Early in that second half we started going cheap fouls on them,” Barker said. “We weren’t moving our feet. We weren’t playing good defense. We were just kind of hacking at them. They attack the basket, we don’t. That’s why they shoot more foul shots than we do.”
CRUSADERS 37, TROJANS 35
John Bapst (16-1) MDI (14-3)
Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP
Jordan 3 11 4 10 10 Stratton 2 5
Nichols 2 10 8 10 12 Young 0 0 0
Andrle 0 1 0 2 0 Banks 1 2 2
MacQuillan 1 2 0 1 2 Lewis 2 7 6
McGuan 1 1 1 3 3 Orman 3 6 6
Estes 0 0 0 0 0 Gray 0 0 0
Gormley 0 0 0 0 0 Cousins 5 18 10
Laferriere 2 6 6 13 10 Falt 2 9 6
Vaux 0 1 0 0
Totals 9 31 19 39 37 Totals 15 51 35
John Bapst 4 16 25 37
MDI 4 8 19 35
3-pt. goals – John Bapst (0-3): Jordan 0-2, Andrle 0-1; MDI (1-7): Stratton 1-2, Orman 0-2, Lewis 0-3
JV: MDI 71-62 (2OT)
Attendance: 400 (est.)
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