Saints prevail over pesky Newman
By Kristi Nixon
ST. ANSGAR — St. Ansgar girls basketball coach Scott Cakerice knew that Mason City Newman would be bothersome in his team’s 54-47 triumph on Friday, Jan. 5.
It was only a matter of handling their swarming full-court pressure defense, something he said they managed much better after half.
“Better the second half than the first half,” Cakerice said. “But we’ve had issues with teams being physical with us. And I think we answered the bell in the second half with that. I thought we were much stronger with the ball.
“We still have to understand we don’t have (graduate) Madison (Hillman) to throw up lob passes where she is going to go up and get it. Our bigs inside this year aren’t going to get that, so we have to make a much quicker, crisper pass. Ball fakes to do that.”
Leading just 20-18 at halftime, the Saints used Newman’s physicality against them and turned that into trips to the free throw line. The Saints were 7-of-12 in the second half, 5-of-10 in the fourth quarter alone to keep the game out of reach despite the Knights’ three-point shooting.
“We spent time on it (handling physicality); we did much better tonight,” Cakerice said. “It’s nowhere as good as it needs to be. We were 14-of-24 from the free throw line, and that’s where we pulled away in the second half.”
The full story will be found in the Jan. 10 print and e-editions of the Enterprise Journal.
