By Dylan Butler
But Bishop Kearney is known as a second half team, too. And the Tigers had a nine-point lead at the break. So when Mary Louis made its usual second half surge, Kearney answered and did what no other team in the CHSAA has been able to do this year – win at Mary Louis, returning to Brooklyn with a convincing 65-52 victory.”At halftime I was feeling pretty good,” said Kearney coach Cathy Crocket, who is two wins away from 300 in her career.As is often the case, Maria Laterza and Jill Brady did their damage – Laterza with 14 points inside and Brady with 13 from outside. But point guard Lisa Abitante proved to be the X-factor for Kearney, which improved to 12-4, 6-2 in the league.Abitante had 13 points, but more importantly, ran the point with poise and composure.”I don't think she turned the ball over,” Mary Louis coach Joe Lewinger said. “She is not going to go by you with you standing three feet off of her. She is going to wait and wait and wait until you make a mistake or you reach and then she's going to go by you.”Conversely, Casey Shevlin was a bit too unselfish for Mary Louis (10-8, 4-4) in the first half, scoring just two points – on a pair of free throws with no time left in the second quarter.But the junior guard, who is closing in on 1,000 career points, buried three three-pointers in the opening four minutes of the third quarter en route to 14 second-half points.”We need her to do that the entire game,” Lewinger said. “There's nobody here who is going to say Casey is shooting the ball too much.”Back-to-back baskets by Nicole Rose, the last a three-point play, brought Mary Louis to within 45-38. On the next possession, it appeared Kearney had thrown the ball away, but the official ruled it deflected off a Mary Louis player.Lewinger's protest earned him a technical foul and Kearney scored the next five points to take a 50-38 lead.Twice in the fourth quarter, Mary Louis got within 10 points, but each time Kearney responded. They got on the glass, they dove on the floor, they outworked a team that thrives on its work ethic.”We got outhustled,” said Maral Javadifar, who had 12 points. “We have to come out and play hard.”Said Crocket: “That is what makes this team, in my eyes, one of my better teams at Bishop Kearney. They're defensive minded, they want to go hard and they can score.”Reach Sports Editor Dylan Butler by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 143.
