Advantage, St. Charles.
For the second year in a row, the St. Charles Lady Pirates knocked off the Union Lady ’Cats for the championship of the Orchard Farm Tournament.
Friday’s championship game ended with a 48-42 St. Charles victory.
“We are doing a lot of good things defensively and our kids love playing together and it shows by their on-court communication,” Union Head Coach Grant Young said. “Helias and St. Charles are good early tests we can build on entering the bulk of our schedule.”
It was the third year in a row that the two teams met up for the title. Union defeated St. Charles for the championship in 2010.
Union (3-2) opened the game with a 13-8 first quarter, but couldn’t sustain that advantage.
“Whitney Vitt hit two threes and we got threes, which lead to transition scores,” Young said.
At the half, St. Charles (4-0) was up 22-17.
“In the second quarter, they really found Olivia Hollander and Gabby Walker in the paint,” Young said. “Even though we were undersized for the game we outrebounded St. Charles. Our struggle was with post entry passes.”
After three quarters, the advantage was 32-24.
Union made a run in the fourth quarter, but couldn’t catch up.
As in last year’s game, Union played in foul trouble most of the night. Union had one player foul out and four others ended with four fouls apiece.
St. Charles was able to manage foul issues better with only two players getting to four fouls.
Young admitted there was another delay as well.
“We had a little 15-minute delay to a power outage in gym at six-minute mark in fourth,” Young said. “My 2-year-old I guess decided we needed a rest pressing, so we had a chance late. He was the culprit.”
The Lady ’Cats had a pair of seniors named to the all-tournament team. Whitney Vitt and Abbie Brack were selected from Union.
Union returned to action at Northwest Monday. The Lady ’Cats visit Rockwood Summit Tuesday with junior varsity action scheduled for 5:30 p.m.
After that, Union is idle until opening Four Rivers Conference play against Pacific next Monday in Union. In the championship game, Union had a pair of players end with 10 points apiece.
Alyssa Coons ended with 10 points, three steals, two assists and one rebound.
Vitt scored 10 points with one assist and one rebound.
Rachael Bassett closed the game with eight points, 13 rebounds, one assist, one blocked shot and one steal.
Brack scored eight points with two assists, two rebounds, two steals and a blocked shot.
Bethany Coons scored six points with six rebounds and three assists.
Also playing were Anna Houston (two rebounds), Jill Johnston (two rebounds) and Briana Lakebrink.
St. Charles was led by Hollander, who scored 21 points with three assists, three rebounds, two steals and a blocked shot.
Another tall player for the Lady Pirates, Walker, ended with 16 points, eight rebounds, three blocked shots and an assist.
From there, only four others scored and Lauren Willis (six points) was the only one to score more than two points.
Subvarsity Wins
The tournament news wasn’t all bad for Union over the weekend. The JV Lady ’Cats (4-1) won the Hermann Tournament title with a 57-39 win over Owensville in the championship game.
Coach Colin Flynn had a roster of Bri Clark, Hannah Lopez, Kayla Kelly, Emily Nowak, Maddy Weinhold, Megan Altemueller, Kaila AuBuchon and Ali Overstreet.
And Union’s freshman team won the Northwest Tournament with a 32-15 win over Northwest.
That team, currently 3-0, was coached by Nick Kelley and Tracy Jeffries. Players were Danielle Bocklage, Emily Bay, Natalie Helling, Cassidy Terrill, Erica Jeffries, Melody Fitzhugh, Jessi Desnoyer, Lyndsy Siedhoff, Sabrina Dehn, Lauren Click, Haley Cluck and Megan Schafferkoetter.
