Mary Kate Bendlage poses with her teammates after being honored for reaching 1,000 points, as well as setting a new school girls' scoring record last week.
Photo by Chuck Vandenberg/PCC
John Bohnenkamp for Pen City Current Sports
FORT MADISON - Teagan Snaadt has started hitting her 3-pointers, and that’s a good sign for Holy Trinity’s girls basketball team with one game left before the holiday break.
Snaadt hit three 3-pointers in Tuesday’s 54-24 win over Clark County (Mo.), adding to a stretch in which she has hit eight 3-pointers in the last three games.
“Teagan’s a perfectionist,” Holy Trinity coach Tony Johnson said. “She wants to shoot 5-for-5, 10-for-10. I told her, ‘You might start 1-for-4, but you could finish 5-for-10, 6-for-10, and that’s amazing. That’s a good night. So I tell her to keep shooting, and they’re going to fall.”
“I think I’m shooting without thinking right now, and that helps a lot,” Snaadt said.
Snaadt had three 3-pointers in last Friday’s win over Van Buren, then two more in Saturday’s win over Winfield-Mount Union.
“She had really good games over the weekend,” Johnson said. “I’m sure the rim right now has opened up for her, and that really helps.”
“I think it’s important to get our outside shooting going,” junior Anna Bendlage said. “Once we can get our outside shooting going, that will get other teams’ zone defenses to pull out, and then our posts can get open inside.
“I thought Teagan was amazing tonight. She had a few threes early, which is really helpful.”
The Crusaders (8-1) got 22 points from Mary Kate Bendlage, who missed the last five minutes of the third quarter after taking a hard foul underneath the basket. Bendlage was helped to the locker room, but came back and played in the fourth quarter.
“Yeah, I was a little worried there,” Johnson said. “She went down pretty hard. It was a really physical game tonight.”
“I thought this was a really good win,” Snaadt said. “They’re a really aggressive team. So to be able to pull through and stick it out, even though we were getting fouled, says a lot about us.”
Holy Trinity’s defense held Clark County to single-digit points in every quarter, including two points in the fourth quarter.
“It was just playing good help-side defense, not overplaying anyone, really protecting the lane,” Snaadt said.
Holy Trinity has allowed just 50 points in its last three games.
“Eleven, 15, 24, in the last three games, that’s pretty good,” Johnson said. “Pretty good three nights in a row, and I think there are still some things we can clean up and be even better.”
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