You can bet the Bishop Diego girls basketball team will be shooting a lot of free throws in practice on Monday.
The Cardinals went a dismal 11-for-30 from the charity stripe in Saturday’s Bishop Diego/Laguna Blanca Tournament championship game, falling to Villanova 59-41.
“That’s the make-or-break for us all the time. If we do well on free throws, we win,” said senior captain Janelle Kohler, who scored a team-high 11 points and grabbed seven rebounds. She was named to the all-Tournament Team along with teammate Kelsey Stimson.
The Wildcats, on the other hand, went 13-for-21 at the line and featured a sister combo, Hannah and Susanna Kolbeck, in the post that rebounded well while combining for 35 points.
In Thursday’s semifinal, Bishop was able to neutralize La Reina’s two big post players, but it was a different story on Saturday.
“It was almost what happened last night but in the other way,” said coach Jeff Burich. “We were a little bit more flat-footed and they were more aggressive.”
Kohler said that the emotional win over La Reina may have caused a letdown in the title game. There wasn’t much of a gap in between the two games, as the title game started earlier at 12:30 p.m.
“I felt like we thought the championship was yesterday and not today, so we played totally different,” she said.
The Wildcats (7-0) made a pair of 3-pointers to start the game and never trailed. They led 31-24 at the half and won the third quarter 14-6. The Cardinals (4-4) missed their first five free throws of the period, and had just one point until Greer Shull made a free throw with 2:30 left in the quarter.
Stimson had another solid game with 10 points and four assists, but struggled from the line as well. Courtney Houston had four points and four steals. Starting point guard Ariel Perez went down with an ankle injury in the first half, which Burich said definitely didn’t help anything.
“It hurt a lot, because I think last night she maybe came out two minutes the whole game,” he said.
Overall, Burich is happy with his team’s showing.
“I thought we played our two best games of the year Thursday and Friday night and we just ran into a team that we really didn’t know anything about… Credit to Villanova. Villanova played great,” he said.
