WINFIELD — Winfield-Mount Union has been a postseason thorn for Holy Trinity’s girls basketball team.
The Crusaders came into Tuesday’s Class 1A regional quarterfinal against the eighth-ranked Wolves with plenty of momentum, but W-MU took advantage of Holy Trinity’s missed opportunities in the second half to take a 56-42 win.
Winfield-Mount Union (20-1) advanced to host Notre Dame (18-6) in Friday’s regional semifinal.
It was the third consecutive season the Wolves have ended the Crusaders’ season.
Holy Trinity trailed by four at halftime and six midway through the third quarter, but the Crusaders would have just five field goals over the last 14 1/2 minutes.
“We missed a lot of shots,” Holy Trinity coach Tony Johnson said. “That was the thing I told them — we missed a lot of easy shots. Our defense was fine, we got the people in foul trouble that we wanted to, and didn’t take advantage of it.”
Holy Trinity (13-9), which came into the game on a five-game winning streak, was within 44-38 with 4:58 left to play in the game, but would only get a Mary Kate Bendlage shot inside and two free throws from Teagan Snaadt with 18 seconds left as Winfield-Mount Union pulled away.
“It seemed like we were in the right places, but we would either miss a shot or something else wouldn’t work out,” Johnson said.
Anna Anderson’s 3-pointer with 3:50 left put Winfield-Mount Union up 48-38, then after Keely Malone’s basket with 3:15 left the Wolves scored their final six points off free throws.
Bradie Buffington led Winfield-Mount Union with 16 points. Melina Oepping had 15 points.
Bendlage led Holy Trinity with 23 points. Snaadt had 13.
It was a season with plenty of roster changes for the Crusaders. Guard Natalie Randolph was unavailable after she suffered a torn ACL before the beginning of volleyball season. Bendlage hurt her knee during preseason practice and didn’t play until right before Christmas break. Freshman center Presley Myers suffered a knee injury late in the season.
“There were so many highs and lows this season, with injuries and sickness,” Johnson said. “You’re mixing and matching, moving people around. We lost Natalie before the season even started, lost MK, and when we were .500 at Christmas that exceeded my expectations.
“I thought as the year went on, we started playing well together. The last two or three weeks we played really good basketball.”
Holy Trinity loses seniors Kayla Box, Mary Hellige and Jenna DiPrima but gets back the bulk of its scoring.
“This core group coming back, plus the incoming players we have, we’ve got to get together this summer and work at it, if we want to get to where we want to get.”
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