St. Bede tops Marquette 49-38 for second straight Tri-County Conference Tournament title

ROANOKE — The St. Bede girls basketball team was looking for a spark after Marquette had cut a 11-point disadvantage to just one heading to the fourth quarter of Thursday’s championship game of the Tri-County Conference Tournament.

That spark came in the form of junior guard Lili McClain.

McLain’s 3-pointer from the left wing 15 seconds into the final period started a 9-0 run for the No. 4-seeded Bruins and helped carry them to a 49-38 triumph over the No. 3-seeded Crusaders to claim the title for the second consecutive season.

[ Photos: Marquette vs. St. Bede girls basketball in the Tri County Conference championship ]

St. Bede, now 15-9 on the season, had dropped the previous two meetings against Marquette (16-9) this season.

“There was a lot more on the line tonight than the first two games against them,“ said McClain, who finished with a game-high 19 points, including 11 of 13 free throws, six rebounds and three blocked shots.

”You just don’t want to lose to a team three times in a season, especially a rival like Marquette. We talked a lot about what things – like starting strong and playing harder defense – we needed to do different tonight that we didn’t do the first two times. I think we did both pretty well.”

St. Bede led 11-8 after one, 22-16 at halftime and 28-17 after a layup by Savannah Bray midway into the third.

Marquette responded with a 13-5 burst to end the quarter, including a pair of 3s and a driving hoop from Kaitlyn Davis, to close the gap to 33-32 as the fourth quarter began.

“(St. Bede) coach (Tom) Ptak talked after the third quarter about how defense was going to win or lose the game for us,” McClain said. “I feel like we just all stuck together and played as hard as we could in the fourth quarter. It seemed like we were able to get a few baskets after turnovers or in transition after defensive rebounds.”

McClain’s aforementioned triple was followed in succession by two baskets by Ava Balestri and an elbow jumper by Bray to make it 42-32 with five minutes to play.

The Crusaders were only able to slice the margin to seven on Hunter Hopkins drive with under two minutes left.

After McClain’s huge night, St. Bede received solid contributions from Bray (10 points, 13 rebounds), Ashlyn Ehm (seven points, 13 rebounds), Balestri (six points, eight rebounds) and Quinn McClain (four points, six assists).

Davis led Marquette with 17 points, including five 3s, while Hopkins recorded eight points, four assists and six steals. Kelsey Cuchra (13 rebounds, three blocks) and Madison Kozlowski each had four points.

“When you play Marquette, you have to try and limit (Davis) by not giving her any space,” Ptak said. “The first time we played them this season we played zone, which was not the right thing to do. Then the second time we went man but went under screens and she just stepped behind the screens for open shots and had like 32 points.

“We worked on getting over top of the screen while the player who is guarding the screener has to hedge out. Even though Davis is an excellent driver as well, we wanted to make her put the ball on the floor as much as possible. I thought we did a great job of guarding Marquette’s picks tonight, which was a huge key.”

St. Bede finished 14 of 42 (33%) shooting, 17 of 22 from the line and won the rebound battle 46-31. Marquette shot a chilly 12 of 59 (20%) and meshed just 6 of 32 from beyond the arc.

“Right from the start we really didn’t get into our offense,” Marquette coach Eric Price said. “Partly that was St. Bede doing a good job defensively on us, but we also had way too much standing around, waiting for someone else to do something. We also didn’t come up with any 50/50 balls. St. Bede was getting all of them. That said, we still had so many open looks, but we just couldn’t get the ball to go in.

“We were in foul trouble all night and I think St. Bede was in the bonus every quarter, which is something that hasn’t happen to us all season. On the flip side, we didn’t get to many opportunities (8 of 11) to go to the line.”

Bray, Ehm, Lili McClain, Davis and Hopkins were all named to the all-tournament team.

Boxscore

Tri-County Conference Tournament

Championship game

At Roanoke

MARQUETTE (38) — Hopkins 2-11 4-4 8, Larson 1-8 1-1 3, K. Nelson 0-8 2-2 2, Davis 6-20 0-2 17, Cuchra 2-7 0-0 4, M. Nelson 0-1 0-0 0, Kozlowski 1-4 1-2 4. Totals 12-59 8-11 38.

ST. BEDE (49) — Ehm 1-7 5-7 7, Engels 1-6 0-0 3, L. McClain 3-8 11-13 19, Q. McClain 1-7 1-2 4, Bray 5-9 0-0 10, Balestri 3-5 0-0 6, P. McClain 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 14-42 17-22 49.

Marquette (16-9) 8 8 16 6 — 38

St. Bede (15-9) 11 11 11 16 — 49

3-point goals — Marquette 6-32 (Hopkins 0-5, Larson 0-4, K. Nelson 0-6, Davis 5-15, M. Nelson 0-1, Kozlowski 1-1); St. Bede 4-19 (Ehm 0-1, Engels 1-5, L. McClain 2-6, Q. McClain 1-7). Rebounds — Marquette 31 (Cuchra 13, K. Nelson 7); St. Bede 46 (Ehm 13, Bray 13, Balestri 8, L. McClain 6). Assists — Marquette 7 (Hopkins 4); St. Bede 8 (Q. McClain 6). Steals — Marquette 10 (Hopkins 6); St. Bede 4 (Ehm 2). Blocks — Marquette 4 (Cuchra 3); St. Bede 6 (L. McClain 3, Ehm 2). Turnovers — Marquette 10, St. Bede 19. Total fouls (fouled out) — Marquette 21 (K. Nelson); St. Bede 11 (none).