Salinas – Against Gilroy Tuesday night, the Notre Dame girls’ basketball team didn’t shoot particularly well.
The Spirits’ leading scorer – league player of the year Jessica Ross – scored only 11 points and went two and a half quarters without a point. The team’s second leading scorer, Randy Goodenough scored only six.
But in the end, it didn’t matter.
In the end, The Streak lived on.
Notre Dame, which has never lost a TCAL matchup, won its 38th straight league game with a dominating 48-26 victory over an even colder-shooting Gilroy team.
“We didn’t play well … what else can you say?” GHS head coach Kari Williams said. “We’ve been missing easy shots for three games now.”
From the very beginning, it was all Notre Dame, which jumped out to a 10-2 lead behind a pair of Ross three-pointers. Once the Gilroy native hit her third trey of the quarter, the Spirits’ lead was 17-5.
The Mustangs cut it do 19-11 early in the second quarter, but didn’t score again until early in the second half – a span of nearly seven minutes.
Notre Dame went on a 12-0 run and never led by less than 18 the rest of the way.
By halftime, Gilroy had turned it over 14 times and trailed 29-11. The Mustangs (15-9/4-3) made just two field goals in each of the first two quarters.
“It’s almost like every time we think Notre Dame, we think impossible,” GHS senior Kendall Costa said. “But it wasn’t impossible this year.
“We just didn’t do the things we needed to do to get the job done.”
One of those things was transition defense. Even when Gilroy was able to make a basket, Notre Dame (16-7/7-0) often heaved the ball downcourt and either converted for two points or at least drew a foul.
Overall, though, the defense played up to expectations. The powerful Spirits, who beat Gilroy by 25 in the teams’ first meeting, won the turnover battle, 25-14, but never really found their shooting rhythm.
“We figured if we held them to around 50, we’d have a chance,” Williams said. “That tells you how bad we were shooting.
“At some point, you have to have some offense.”
The Mustangs simply never got it.
Post Amanda Link led the team with eight points and six rebounds, but no other GHS player scored more than four. In fact, leading scorer Katherine Hussey was held to just four shots.
“We weren’t getting our key players involved in the offense – the ball was not going where it needed to be,” Williams said. “We were just out of rhythm from the start. And Notre Dame did a great job of keeping us that way.”
In trying to figure out what caused the blowout, Williams said she thought her team might have exhausted itself in its gut-wrenching 51-50 win over Hollister Saturday. It also didn’t help that the ‘Stangs didn’t get to practice yesterday due to testing in the gym.
In the end, her conclusion was clear and concise.
“The only thing we can blame it on,” she said, “is the fact that they beat us and are a better team.”
1st 2nd 3rd 4th F
GHS 7 4 9 6 26
ND 17 12 10 9 48
GHS (15-9/4-3): Link 3 2-3 8, DiFiore 0 2-4 2, Hussey 2 0-2 4, Campos 1 0-0 3, Mancera 1 0-2 3, Radtke 2 0-0 4, Groppe 1 0-0 2.
3-pointers: Campos, Mancera.
ND (16-7/7-0): L. Mendalla 0 0-1 0, Taylor 2 0-0 5, Clark 1 0-0 2, Plummer 2 3-6 7, B. Mendalla 2 0-0 4, Santos 4 0-0 8, Callahan 1 0-0 2, Ross 4 0-0 11, Goodenough 3 0-0 6, Romero 1 1-2 3
3-pointers: Ross (3), Taylor.
Rebounds: ND 26, GHS 18.
Turnovers: ND 14, GHS 25.
