Mount St Joseph’s nips St Basil in big AACA showdown on layup from Lucas

After narrowly defeating Mount St Joseph’s on its home court 39-37 back in early January, St Basil got the favor returned to it as a layup by Kristen Lucas with 29 seconds remaining in the game clinched the 33-32 win for the Magic.
St Basil still had a pair of opportunities to win the game after the Lucas basket as it took a timeout with 10 seconds to draw up a play. It resulted in Erin Buckley launching a deep three with a pretty good look but the shot didn’t fall.
Getting the ball to Natalie Kucowski to take the final shot would have been the safe bet for Basil to go with but Mount was prepared for that defensively so the Panthers opted to go another route. Kucowski finished with a game-high 16 points.
“We have a set play that we ran and the play starts with getting the ball into Natalie and to (Mount coach) John Miller’s credit he triple-teamed her,” St Basil coach Terry Mancini said. “When we got the ball down lower we were trying to decoy her and get the ball to Karen (Lapkiewicz).”
The Panthers claimed control of the game early taking an 11-1 lead midway through the first quarter and held a seven-point advantage at the end of the first frame. The Magic was able to cut the Panther lead to one by halftime as Libby Tacka scored six of her seven points in the second quarter.
“If you’re down 11-1 a lot of teams would have gotten frustrated and gotten away from their game plan,” Miller said. “They stayed together there was no pointing fingers. Being down 11-1 playing on a difficult court with such a big crowd that takes a lot of character.”
In the second half Caitlyn Cunningham found her offensive rhythm as she scored 10 of her team-high 14 points in the second half including six of the Magic 10 points in the final frame. Cunningham’s performance stood as a microcosm of the Mount offense for the day.
Cunningham and the Magic were getting good looks at the basket but just couldn’t get some shots to fall. Cunningham and the rest of the Mount offense stayed true to its game plan didn’t get rattled and just kept firing as it was able to get just enough baskets down the stretch.
“The hotter she got the more plays I was calling for and shame on me if I don’t,” Miller said. “You have to ride the hot hand and I think it was pretty noticeable that she was hot.”
With the win Mount puts its self in good position to clinch the number one seed in the conference playoffs with a showdown with Gwynedd Mercy looming on Monday that will likely decide it.