The Lady Aces used a first-quarter blitz to take early control, coasting the rest of the way as they kicked off the postseason with a dominant 58-19 win over Owensboro in the 9th District tournament semifinals Monday night at the Sportscenter.
Catholic (21-10) moves on to Thursday’s championship, where they’ll try to win their third straight district crown as they face Apollo in the title game for the fourth consecutive year. More importantly, the Lady Aces secured a spot in next week’s 3rd Region tournament.
“The first (postseason) game is the biggest game of the year,” said Catholic head coach Michael Robertson. “It doesn’t matter what your record is, it’s 0-0 when the tournament starts. You’ve got one chance to win a game — if you lose you go home.”
Isabella Henning got things rolling early for Catholic, opening the game with a corner 3 and adding another four points to put the Lady Aces up 10-2 less than three minutes into the game.
Over the next two minutes, Hannah McKay went on a personal 10-0 run — including converting a pair of steals into easy layups and capping it all off with a 3-pointer.
Catholic ended the first quarter with a 22-2 lead, with Owensboro’s only bucket coming on a drive by A’Lyrica Hughes just over two minutes into the game.
“We really worked to try and get off to a good start,” Robertson said. “That was something that I really focused on. We did a good job in our press early and making Owensboro play a little bit faster than they wanted to. We got down and got some easy shots.”
Catholic pushed their lead to 38-11 by halftime and 52-19 by the end of the third.
“We work on a lot of stuff and try to get ready for this time of year,” Robertson said. “Postseason is what we want to thrive in and be the best at. We want to be ready and play our best at the end of the year.”
Though it was a dominant performance all the way around, Robertson said he still sees room for improvement going forward.
“We’ve got to rebound the ball a little bit better,” he said. “We gave up way too many offensive rebounds. We’ve got to take care of the ball.”
McKay led Catholic with 21 points, 10 rebounds and five steals, while Henning added 12 points and four steals.
Owensboro (5-25) was led by Hughes with six points, and Nia Gozo had a team-high six rebounds.
BOX SCORE
OHS 2-9-8-0—19
OCHS 22-16-14-6—58
OHS (19): A’Lyrica Hughes (6), Krystell Pappas (5), Lyric Lawrence (5), Brooklyn Williams (2), Kayln Sowders (1).
OCHS (58): Hannah McKay (21), Isabella Henning (12), Spencer Harvey (7), Lexie Keelin (5), Kashlynn Rice (3), Katie Riney (2), Catherine Head (2), Camille Conkright (2), Ally Maggard (2), Kinsley Goetz (2)
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2019-20 basketball coverage is presented in part by Rhoads & Rhoads Attorneys at Law.
