by The Magnificat Blue Streaks used incredible defense and gritty play inside, to handle their crosstown rival St. Joe’s 64-31 tonight on the road. This game was schedule for last night before it was postponed from the power outage. The Blue Streaks did the little things like play full court defense, make second chance shots and hit shots from the foul line to capture the victory.
The Blue Streaks were led by seniors Reese Roggenburk with 17, Julia Hall with 12 and Sofia Wilson with 10 while junior sensation Gemma Wichmann picked up 11 hard earned points. Wichmann has become a machine down low when it comes to second chance points. The Jaguars were led by Nia French and Morgan Wearsch with 9 each.
The Blue Streaks went right at Melanie Alvarenga as she picked up two quick fouls before a single point could be scored, less then 90 seconds into the action. The Jaguars dropped back into a zone following a Julia Hall three making it 4-0 for the Blue Streaks early. It wouldn’t help the Jaguars with turnovers however as Gemma Wichmann intercepted a wing pass and took it in for an easy layup to increase the lead to 6-0 shortly after. The Jaguars had to battle a bit to get their first bucket as the Blue Streaks buckled down, but after about a 40 second possession, cashed in with a Morgan Wearsch bucket in the paint with 4:28 still to play in the first.
After a Wilson fast break layup increased the Blue Steak lead to 8-2, a pair of foul shots from Wearsch cut into it at 8-4. The teams went both ways from there for the rest of the quarter as the Blue Streaks took a 11-8 lead after one. Half of the Jaguars 8 points in the quarter, came from the line with Nia French scoring the quarters four final points.
Nia French started the second as hot as she finished the first, with a three from the corner to tie the game at 11. The second quarter was all Magnificat as they doubled up the Jaguars to lead out 27-16 at the break. The big blows coming from an 8-0 run as Wichmann and Roggenburk dominated the middle. That run was stopped by a Ruthie Becker 3, but it wasn’t enough to slow the Streaks who took that 27-16 lead into the break as mentioned earlier. It was a huge quarter for Wichmann in the paint as she scored 10 in the frame, all on second efforts!
The defensive intensity was strong to start the second half as we went nearly two minutes without scoring to open things up, before two Roggenburk foul shots broke the seal. At the 4:16 mark, the Blue Streaks ran their lead out to 37-18 thanks in part to a great job with the full court press and getting the Jaguars into foul trouble.
A few minutes later, a Charlotte Pap three ball made it 40 – 18 and pretty much put the game out of reach. From there, the Wilson connection of Sofia and Izzy both joined the party with three balls of their own, to make it a commanding 46-18. The run was finally stopped by SJA with a Wearsch three ball. They kept up the pace and led 47-24 after three.
The Blue Streaks began the fourth quarter on a 9-0 run to increase their lead to 56-24 with 4:16 left in the game, ending all doubt. The Blue Streaks went on there to win 64-31.
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