Tied at halftime, Bishop Mac pulls away to end Seneca’s season in sectional semis

HERSCHER – Through the first half of Tuesday’s Class 2A Herscher Sectional semifinal between the Bishop McNamara and Seneca girls basketball teams, it looked like a thrilling finish was in store for a game that saw the two teams knotted at the end of the first quarter (5-5) and at halftime (18-18).

But out of the gate in the second half, it was McNamara (26-7) who forced three Seneca turnovers in the first minute, kickstarting a 6-0 spurt in the first 60 seconds that eventually became a 14-2 run, propelling McNamara past Seneca (25-9) 51-30 to put the program in its first sectional championship game since 2019.

“I just told them we’ve gotta play our game,” McNamara coach Khadaizha Sanders said. “We’ve gotta calm down, and it all starts on the defensive end. We turned it up defensively, and that was all she wrote after that.”

Held to just five points on 2-for-8 shooting in the first half, McNamara leading scorer Trinity Davis tallied 15 second-half points to total a game-high 20 points. Davis and fellow senior Leigha Brown each had a pair of steals that became assists to the other one as part of that game-changing third quarter.

As she absorbed Sanders' halftime speech, Davis said she realized she had to pick it up on both ends of the floor if she wanted to guarantee her prep career would continue.

“It was a very close game, and I feel like I wasn’t really contributing with the scoring, and that’s why it was so close,” Davis said. “In the third quarter I had to step it up, realizing it could be my last game.”

Graysen Provance’s bucket with 1:42 left in the third put an end to the McNamara run and cut Seneca’s deficit back to 10 points at 32-22, but by then, the damage was done. Seneca coach Josh Myers thought his team started the game off well enough to win, but couldn’t answer McNamara’s mighty push to open the third.

“We took a lot of their stuff away,” Myers said. “Their players are tall, and they can get where they need to be, but I thought we did a really good job of sinking in. I think we got a little tired probably, and when shots don’t fall, they get some loose ball runouts and easy baskets, all of the sudden you’re down 10, and it just gets bigger and bigger.”

Davis added four steals to her game-high 20 points for one-seed McNamara. Sophomore forward Trinitee Thompson notched a double-double, finishing with 13 points and 11 rebounds. Fellow sophomore post Jaide Burse had seven points and eight boards, while Brown did a bit of everything with six points and rebounds apiece and four assists and steals apiece.

Provance led No. 2 seed Seneca with 11 points, three boards and an assist. Alyssa Zellers added seven points and four rebounds. Tessa Krull had seven points and 10 rebounds.