Lady Crusaders rebound from rough Monday

FORT MADISON - The second loss of the season for Holy Trinity’s girls basketball team provided plenty of motivation for Tuesday’s 59-21 win over Central Lee at Shottenkirk Gym.

The Crusaders (16-2 overall, 11-2 SEI Superconference) were steamed at Monday’s 56-49 loss at Danville for a lot of reasons. That anger is why coach Tony Johnson was so confident in Tuesday’s game.

“We weren’t happy when we left Danville, so I knew we would be all right,” Johnson said. “There was nobody happy wearing a blue shirt last night, and I knew this was going to be the outcome.”

“It was a lot better than last night. We remained in control,” said senior Mary Kate Bendlage, who led the Crusaders with 20 points. “I think when we stay in control, and not get out of our senses, we are such a good team. Last night we got out of whack, it got a little helter-skelter, and then we just lost control. Our heads kind of blew up.”

That kind of mayhem affected the Crusaders.

“It was really frustrating,” Bendlage said. “We missed bunnies, I missed free throws. If we would have made our free throws, made the little shots, we win that game by 10 or 15 points.”

Holy Trinity opened this game with a 9-0 run and led 20-4 at the end of the first quarter, 37-9 at halftime.

“I was glad that we played better tonight,” Johnson said. “We got the ball where we wanted, we were more under control.”

Central Lee (5-13, 5-8) scored just two points over the final 7:50 of the first half. The Hawks finished a stretch of four games in five days that included games against Danville and Holy Trinity, the two top teams in the South Division, and a game against Keokuk, which is ranked 15th in Class 4A.

“We just haven’t had any practice to work on things,” Central Lee coach Taylor Hickey said. “Last night against Notre Dame, I told the girls that we could take spurts from each game, and we’re a whole different team. We’ve got to put it all together, plus we’re just worn down.”

Holy Trinity’s pressure defense bothered the Hawks, Hickey said.

“Our girls just got sped up,” she said. “We made some mistakes, as we normally do. And when their shots started falling, our heads started dropping.”

Central Lee was without point guard Lizzy Mason, who was injured in Monday’s game against Notre Dame.

“Just a lot of weird things tonight,” Hickey said. “We’re just trying to figure out how to get better. It’s hard when we’re losing, and the girls are getting down. It’s, like, how do we find good in it, and how can we teach them? There were times, when Holy Trinity was running their 1-2-2 press, that I wanted to call a timeout and say to the ref, ‘Can I go out and show the girls really quick what we need to do?’”

Taylor Jones led Central Lee with 10 points.

Natalie Randolph added 18 points for the Crusaders, who play in Saturday’s SEI Superconference Shootout game at Southeastern Community College in West Burlington.

“I think we had some hungry kids tonight who wanted to play for something we’ve never had a chance to do on Saturday,” Johnson said. “It’s our first time getting to play in the Saturday game at SCC, and I know that’s something that they wanted to do.”