AUBURN — Ferocious defense and strong play inside the key opened doors for Mt. Abram in its girls basketball game against St. Dominic Academy on Monday.
The Roadrunners turned up the pressure in the fourth quarter and claim their first win of the season, a 47-29 road victory over the Saints (1-2).
Mt. Abram (1-3) senior guard Abi Wilcox and St. Dom’s guard Charli Apodaca each led their teams in scoring with 11 points apiece.
Roadrunners coach Lanie Roy, whose team played man-to-man all night and pressed the Saints in the second, said Mt. Abram runs on a strong defense.
“I am a a big believer that defense wins games,” Roy said. “That’s what we are focusing on. We are young. We are working on stuff and we keep working.
“We were in either half-court man or full-court man today, but we were doing some good help defense. They had a good shooter so we were working (on) her, No. 2 (Charli Apodaca). So we were doing some help defense with that.”
Included in Apodaca’s 11 points were three 3-pointers. Her sister, Ava, scored seven points for the Saints.
Wilcox made several strong drives to the net and made the team’s only 3-pointer. Teammate Josey Arm finished with 10 points.
“I was proud of our D overall, — especially in the second half,” Wilcox said. ” I feel like we got really stronger and started to see the court better. We played man-t0-man the entire time and we even did a full-court man-to-man press, which is something we don’t usually do, but I was really glad we did. …
“That (man-to-man) helped us a lot. It really helped us really gain control of the floor and really get those steals that we needed and pressure the ball — just take away those easy opportunities that they were getting. Yeah, it really helped us with our movement and our spacing.”
The Roadrunners came out strong in the third quarter and built up their lead to 22-14. Abi Wilcox’s two foul shots put the Roadrunners on top, 27-19 with 1:37 left in the third quarter, but Apodaca’s 3-pointer made it 30-24 at the end of the period.
Mt. Abram then pulled away by outscoring St. Dom’s 17-5 in the final quarter.
“We got tired and they out-hustled us a little bit,” St. Dom’s coach Lexi Grondin said. “There was also the little things — wrong passes, telegraphing where we were passing and not good help defense. So the little things fell a part in the end and Mt. Abram good advantage of that.”
Grondin, however, was impressed with the Saints’ camaraderie despite trailing the entire game.
“The girls are always cheering on each other even when we are down by five, down by 10, they are always congratulating each other and they are pushing each other to do better,” Grondin said. “They are very coachable and positive.”
After the two teams struggled to score in the first quarter, Mt. Abram opened up a six-point lead, 14-8, in the second quarter.
The Saints came back and, with the help of Ava Apodaca’s four points, tied the game at 14-14. Mt. Abram’s Mackenzie Contreras scored a basket to break the tie and give the Roadrunners a 16-14 lead heading into halftime.
In the first quarter, Roadrunners took 9-8 lead, Wilcox leading the way with two strong drives to the basket for four points.
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