Riding away to a victory

ST. MARYS - One hot streak in the first quarter gave St. Marys a comfortable lead.

Another in the third quarter put the game on ice.

The Roughriders celebrated Senior Night in style, beating St. Henry 61-27 in a Grand Lake-area girls basketball contest at Grand Lake Health System Court on Tuesday night.

The contest started out a bit slow. After Noelle Ruane swished a 3-pointer with 7:15 left in the quarter to make it 5-2 St. Marys, neither team could manage a point for nearly three minutes before Leah Lefeld's bucket at 4:35 got St. Henry to within one at 5-4.

But with a pair of Ruane free throws with 4:09 to go, the Roughriders got rolling. Morgan Hesse, Reagan Allemeier, Kendall Dieringer and Ruane all contributed to a 11-0 run that was snapped with 5:48 left in the first half on a Claire Wendel basket, making it 16-6.

"It was nice to get everyone involved," said St. Marys coach Jon Burke. "Noey was able to get going in the first half and take the ball to the hoop. If she's aggressive, it opens up the others."

St. Marys led 27-14 at the end of the first half, and St. Henry tried to get things going to start the third quarter as Mya Ontrop opened with a bucket. This time, Dieringer triggered the big Roughrider run with a trey. Dieringer scored nine of the first 11 points in the quarter with two treys and an old-fashioned hoop-and-harm 3-point play to quickly make it 38-16 with less than three minutes elapsed off the clock.

By the time Ontrop hit a pair of free throws with 3:00 remaining in the quarter to end a 15-0 run, the Roughriders were up 42-16.

"The nice thing is we have depth on the bench to allow us to keep up the defensive pressure," said Burke. "Our defense can be better, especially coming up to tourney time, but our pressure bothers teams and we get a lot of offense off that."

St. Marys continued to pressure St. Henry into the fourth quarter and finally reached the 35-point barrier with 4:50 to play in the game to trigger the running clock.

"We missed some opportunities to score. We had some good looks inside but couldn't get them to go," said St. Henry coach Nate Uhlenhake, whose squad shot 25.5 % (12-of-47) from the floor. "We let them get out (in transition) and get some easy buckets. We have to be a lot better in transition."

All five St. Marys seniors - Ruane, Dieringer, Karsyn McGlothen, Natalie Imwalle and Elena Menker - scored in the contest. Menker, who suffered an ACL tear during soccer season and has not played this season, got a chance to start and on the opening tip, with St. Henry's approval, she got a layup to score her first points of the season. St. Marys returned the favor as Lauren Beyke scored an uncontested layup to level the score at 2-2.

"Proud of our seniors tonight," said Burke. "Elena tore her ACL during soccer and I was happy to be able to (give Menker a chance to start and score) tonight. I'm happy St. Henry allowed us to do that.

"Natalie is one of those kids that puts in (great effort) all the time. She's been here for four years and puts in all the extra (work). Nice to see her get a basket."

Dieringer finished with a game-high 23 points thanks to 9-of-11 foul shooting and 6-of-11 field goal shooting. Ruane was 5-of-7 from the floor - making both 3-point tries - and added 14 points.

Lefeld scored 10 to lead the Redskins.

Weather permitting, both teams return to league play on Thursday. St. Marys hosts Elida while St. Henry welcomes MAC leader New Knoxville to Redskin Gymnasium.