Lone Tree ends Lady Crusaders year

BY JOHN BOHNENKAMP
PCC SPORTS

LONE TREE — Holy Trinity’s girls basketball team grew throughout the season, but the Crusaders could never shake their inconsistency.
That inconsistency doomed them in Tuesday’s 59-52 loss to Lone Tree in a Class 1A regional quarterfinal.
The Lady Lions (13-10) play at Notre Dame (19-4) in Friday’s semifinal.
Holy Trinity ended the season at 13-10.
The Crusaders were plagued by turnovers in the first half, and again in the fourth quarter, when they were outscored 19-8.
“We shouldn’t have turned the ball over like that,” Holy Trinity coach Tony Johnson said. “We were too lackadaisical with the ball. I told them that at halftime, and we continued to do it in the second half.”
Holy Trinity led 44-40 after three quarters, withstanding three 3-pointers in the quarter from Lone Tree’s Madeline Jacque.
The Lady Lions then opened the fourth quarter with a 7-2 run, six coming from Allison Marshek, who had two points through the first three quarters.
The Crusaders led 50-49 after a jumper from Maria Rauenbuehler with 3:10 to play, but that would be the last Holy Trinity field goal of the game.
With the score tied at 51, Lone Tree closed the game on an 8-1 run after the Crusaders missed two shots and had three turnovers that final stretch.
“We shouldn’t have turned the ball over,” Johnson said. “All year we fought consistency, that consistent flow. We would be good for four or five minutes, and then four or five minutes it would go away. Part of that is lack of experience, I guess. I don’t know. I guess if I knew, I would have fixed it.”
Senior Avery Hopper led Holy Trinity with 14 points before fouling out in the fourth quarter. Senior Ashlyn Haas added 11.
Madeline Jacque had 22 points for Lone Tree. Holley Johnson had 16.
Hopper, Haas and Samantha Pothitakis were the only seniors on Holy Trinity’s roster this season.
“Going into this year, I had no idea what I had,” Johnson said. “I didn’t know if we would win one game, five games. We won 13, we got better. We watched film from the beginning of the year to now, and we’re a whole different team.
“We’ve got a lot of players coming back, we’ve got a great group coming up.”