Girls basketball: St. Bede tops Seneca 57-27 for 10th straight victory

SENECA – St. Bede Academy senior guard Ella Hermes says besides her team playing solid basketball, there has been a secret weapon that has helped the team over the past few months.

“We have goals written up on the board before every game,” Hermes said. “We go over them, and then I write ‘All gas, no brakes’ on the board before we come out for warmups. It seems like ever since we started doing that, we’ve done really well, so we are going to keep on doing it. It’s a little superstitious, but it is working for us.”

The Bruins stayed red hot in Monday’s Tri-County Conference game against Seneca, using a combination of solid rebounding and an air-tight 1-3-1 trapping half-court defense that forced seven turnovers to push out to a double-digit first-quarter lead in a 57-27 win over the Fighting Irish.

It was the 10th consecutive win for St. Bede (21-7, 11-1 T-CC). The Bruins also defeated Seneca 58-29 Dec. 11.

“When we can create a turnover or get a steal, everyone is just running their hardest to the basket. I thought we did a good job of that tonight.”

—  Quinn McClain, St. Bede junior

“We still have a lot to work on with our 1-3-1, but I feel like it’s a defense we can really get good at if we keep working at it,” Hermes said. “We have Ashlyn [Ehm] at the top, and she does a great job of pressuring the other team’s guards, and that gives the rest of us a chance to get steals. I think everyone on the team likes this new defense for us, and hopefully it can be something that can help us when we need it down the road.”

The Bruins, who led 17-3 after the opening eight minutes and 34-15 at halftime, were led by 16 points and nine rebounds from Ali Bosnich. Lily Bosnich added 13 points and six rebounds. Ehm (seven rebounds) and Lili McLain each scored eight points, with Quinn McClain chipping in seven points.

“I feel our defense creates offense for us a lot,” McClain said. “When we can create a turnover or get a steal, everyone is just running their hardest to the basket. I thought we did a good job of that tonight.”

After Ali Bosnich and Seneca’s Audry McNabb traded hoops to start the contest, the Bruins, who held a 41-23 margin on the boards, used a 15-0 run to grab the momentum. In the burst, 10 points came directly from turnovers, while the remaining five came from second-chance opportunities.

“We’ve been working on the 1-3-1 slowly the past few games, and the girls are really starting to get it and understand it,” St. Bede coach Stephanie Mickley said. “It looked pretty good tonight, especially in the first quarter, but we still have more to work on with it. We played them man the first game, and we just thought as well as it worked against La Salle-Peru in our last game, we’d start with it tonight.”

Lainie Olson paced Seneca (14-14, 5-7) with 11 points and four rebounds, with Evelyn O’Connor adding six points.

“They are a good team, and they are where we hope to be,” Seneca coach Josh Myers said. “They have a good combination of girls that can shoot and girls that can score in the post. They didn’t play that 1-3-1 against us the first time we played them, and that really hurt us tonight. St. Bede is long, tall and does a great job of getting into the passing lanes.

“We hadn’t seen a trapping defense like that since Annawan back in early December and just struggled against it.”

Both teams are back in action Thursday with T-CC games. St. Bede travels to take on Midland, while Seneca is on the road to face Dwight.