John Bohnenkamp for Pen City Current Sports
FORT MADISON - Mary Kate Bendlage’s 1,000th career point went unnoticed in Holy Trinity’s first-half flurry in Friday’s 60-11 win over Van Buren.
Bendlage’s free throw to finish off a three-point play gave the Crusaders a 23-2 lead in the first half, but, when the game was over, the senior knew what the milestone meant.
“It shows all my hard work, and that my teammates have my back,” she said.
Bendlage became the second 1,000-point scorer in Holy Trinity history on a night when the Crusaders posted an impressive win to bounce back from their first loss of the season.
The 61-57 overtime defeat at Notre Dame on Tuesday knocked Holy Trinity (6-1 overall, 5-1 SEI Superconference South Division) from its No. 15 spot in the Class 1A rankings, but it provided plenty of motivation for the Crusaders.
Holy Trinity dominated early against the Warriors (1-6, 1-5). The Crusaders led 25-2 with 4:55 left in the first half, led 37-10 at halftime, then held Van Buren to one second-half point.
“Tuesday was a tough loss — it was a game we should have won,” said Bendlage, who finished with 13 points. “It sucked because of the hard work we had put in. But just because we had the loss, it didn’t define us. We came back and we worked hard, and it showed in a game like this, the way we bounced back.”
“It was nice, because we came off a rough game against Notre Dame,” said senior Natalie Randolph, who scored the first five points of the game and finished with 19. “It was really good to get a nice win.”
The focus for the Crusaders in practice this week was on defense.
“We came back to practice, and cleaned some things up,” Randolph said “We worked on our defense, especially our press a lot. I think our press worked really well tonight.”
“I thought our defense was good tonight,” Bendlage said. “We communicated really well. Our defense was solid, and our offense came with it.”
Holy Trinity coach Tony Johnson liked how his team started the game.
“The good thing is we were getting the shots we wanted,” Johnson said. “Now we’ve just got to start finishing the shots. I told them they needed to attack the rim better, shorten up the distance between the shot and the rim. We’re getting better at running the offense, and we’re rebounding a little better too.”
The last field goal of the game for Van Buren was Shae Batten’s 3-pointer that beat the first-half buzzer. Marlee Mertens’ free throw with 4:12 left in the third quarter was the Warriors’ only point of the second half.
“Defense wins games, that’s what we’re told in practice, and then the offense will follow through,” Bendlage said. “Tonight we didn’t score much in the third quarter, we came out a little flat. But our defense kept us going.”
Holy Trinity scored 14 fourth-quarter points, 10 coming from guard Teagan Snaadt, who hit two 3-pointers on the way to a 12-point game.
“At the end, it was good to see Teagan hit some outside shots, because we’ve got to start shooting the ball better from the outside,” Johnson said. “So, that’s the focus from here until Christmas is getting them shooting from the outside.”
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