Archbishop Wood falls to Nihill, Cardinal O’Hara
WARMINSTER >> To say that Archbishop Wood’s schedule this season has been front loaded would probably be a massive understatement, having already played Neumann-Goretti and several other very high-caliber teams in tournament play.
Another huge test was in front of the Vikings on their home court Friday night as Philadelphia Catholic League rival Cardinal O’Hara paid a visit.
The game was defensively dominated, as neither team really got an easy basket the entire game, but Hannah Nihill’s playmaking and O’Hara’s to get to the free throw line saw Wood yet again come out on the short side of a highly contested game 44-36.
“We’re right there in a game with O’Hara,” Archbishop Wood coach Mike McDonald said. “It’s always a game with us two, we just didn’t come out on the top side, and we have to figure out how to get on the other side of these losses right now.”
It was a brutal night offensively for the Vikings, as they had only 15 points at halftime and forward Bailey Greenberg and forward Kate Connolly were the only offensive presence, accounting for 13 of the 15 first half points. Claire Bassetti hit a pair of free throws in the first quarter.
The scoring distribution never evened out as it took until two seconds remaining, when the game was in hand, for a Wood player not named Greenberg or Connolly to make more than one field goal in the game.
“If we score enough points to win the game I don’t really care who scores,” McDonald said. “We don’t typically have one person who scores a ton of points. We usually have some chipping in but we just haven’t gotten enough chipped in.”
Despite the scoring issues, there where several points in the fourth quarter where the Vikes cut the O’Hara lead to two possessions, but the offensive inconstancy prevented them from coming all the way back.
“They were being very physical and we weren’t able to get over that and finish plays,” said McDonald of the offense. “Maybe we need better spacing, I need to see a lot of things on tape to see what I got to do to get us in better position.”
O’Hara’s scoring breakdown was not much different, but the Lions’ playmakers made the difference. Nihill was a force for O’Hara all night, dropping a game-high 17 points as she dribbled through the Wood defense, scoring, finding open teammates and drawing fouls. She did just about everything but drive the bus home.
Right behind Nihill in scoring was Mackenzie Gardler, who netted 16 points, mostly aided by the fact she went to the line 10 times in the fourth quarter alone, hitting six in a row after missing the first four.
“We didn’t want them making a lot of threes,” said McDonald of his team’s defensive approach. “Gardler ended up getting some space and she got a few off and she didn’t miss, that’s a credit to her. But our plan was just play them, if they went to the basket to try to take a one on one, make shots over top of us.”
With a good majority of the Philadelphia Catholic League schedule still to play it would be difficult to say the Vikings schedule gets easier from here but its looks like it might take one game for the Vikes to turn the corner and become a dangerous team.
