Girls basketball: St. Bede beats Bureau Valley in OT after rallying in fourth

The old saying it’s not how you start, it’s how you finis played out Thursday as the Bureau Valley girls basketball team came out strong in the first half, but St. Bede finished strong to come away with a 64-55 Three Rivers Conference East Division victory in overtime in Peru.

Entering the fourth quarter, the Storm led 42-40, but the Bruins did as they had all night long — they fed the beast in the middle as Ali Bosnich was aggressive and lived at the foul line.

Her power move inside and a long two from her freshman sister, Lily, trimmed St. Bede’s deficit to 45-44.

But as they had most of the game, the Storm had an answer in Kate Salisbury, whose strong drive to the basket and then a 3-pointer pushed the lead to 50-44.

“Kate had a great night for us,” Bureau Valley coach Matt Wasilewski said. “We need her to be more consistent. We had a couple games where she disappeared on us and we’re working on that, but tonight she was fantastic.”

Her two free throws gave the Storm a 53-46 lead, but Ali Bosnich hit two more free throws and cut the lead to 53-50.

With time running out, St. Bede sophomore Quinn McClain banked home a 3-pointer to tie the game and send it into overtime as Bureau Valley was unable to connect for the game winner.

“We have such a young team out there,” St. Bede coach Stephanie Mickley said. “We’re starting to really play well together and trust each other. We knew we had a size advantage so we kept feeding Ali and then we drew the play up for Quinn at the end and she’s got the shooters mentality of keep firing it up there and she was able to send it into overtime for us.”

In the extra session, it was all Bruins as Ali Bosnich got a putback and several free throws to go along with another big 3-pointer from McClain as St. Bede came away with the 64-55 victory.

Early on, Bureau Valley took control with the game tied at 10. Lynzie Cady used a bounce pass to Kate Stoller and then Stoller hit the 3-pointer on back-to-back plays to cap off an 8-0 run for an 18-10 lead.

The lead grew to 22-12 in the second quarter with a steal and layup from Salisbury, but the Bruins crawled back in as Ali Bosnich hit a pair of free throws before a steal and layup from Lily Bosnich made it 23-18 Bureau Valley.

The Storm pushed the lead back to double digits with back-to-back 3-pointers from Salisbury for a 31-20 advantage.

But St. Bede was able to get it back within single digits at the intermission as Lily Bosnich drained a shot behind the arc to go into the break trailing 32-26.

“The team has really accepted Lily being the point guard,” Mickley said. “She’s solid with the ball and does a nice job getting the ball to her teammates and her confidence is growing each game.”

Lily Bosnich started the second half strong, hitting a pair of free throws and then draining a shot with her foot on the arc to make it 35-32 Storm.

Cady hit a short jumper for the Storm and the Bruins countered with a fast break layup from Ashlyn Ehm that gave the Bruins the lead at 38-37.

But the Storm retook the lead at 43-40 entering the fourth as Stoller hit a layup and the foul shot.

“We started out strong and then got in foul trouble,” Wasilewski said. “That took some ball handling out of the lineup along with some shooting and (Ali) Bosnich did a nice job hitting her free throws.”

Ali Bosnich scored a game-high 32 points, including making 20 of 24 free throws, while also grabbing 13 rebounds. Lily Bosnich scored 15 points and McClain added 10.

Salisbury led the Storm with 28 points, while Stoller added 15.