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North Catholic starts section play with 20-point win vs. Highlands

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Thursday, December 14, 2023 | 9:47 PM

With about four minutes left in the third quarter of Thursday’s Section 1-4A opener between Highlands and North Catholic, the host Golden Rams trailed by two points.

Moments before, senior sharpshooter Kate Myers had drained a 3-pointer from the left wing to draw Highlands to within one possession and energize the home crowd.

But the Golden Rams struggled offensively from that point, scoring two points over a 12-minute span against the Trojanettes’ zone defense.

At the same time, North Catholic warmed up offensively.

It all added up to a 44-24 victory in the section opener for both teams.

“We have a bunch of zone offense that allow us to execute and get us the looks we want,” said Golden Rams coach Shawn Bennis, who saw his team fall to 3-2 overall.

“Obviously, they were shading Kate and taking her away, which opens up other things for people. Ultimately, those other people have to take advantage of the opportunities they are getting. We got the ball in the middle of the paint in the high post constantly. We had some wide-open looks from three. They just have to go in, and they didn’t go in for us. If they go in, it’s a different story and they have to come out of the zone, and we can do some other things.

“Both teams took away things that the other likes to run. When good teams play, that usually occurs, and it comes down to who makes plays. That was the case tonight.”

North Catholic split a pair of games at the North Allegheny Tournament on Dec. 1-2 and hadn’t returned to competition until Thursday.

The Trojanettes outscored Highlands, 11-5, in the third quarter and put the game away with a 15-4 advantage in the fourth. Leading scorer Alayna Rocco paced all scorers with 18 points. She was the lone player in double figures for either team.

“I thought the girls responded well in the second half,” North Catholic coach Molly Rottman said. “We lost something in the second quarter. We were rushing shots and weren’t running what we needed to be running. We just got out of sync, and we needed to get it back. Obviously, turning to a zone in the second half helped us, and we settled down a little bit.”

Twelve of Rocco’s 18 came in the third and fourth quarters.

Rottman said she hopes her team, which travels to Philadelphia on Saturday to face Lebanon before hosting Freeport in section play Monday and visiting Seneca Valley out of section Wednesday, can build off this win.

“It is important that we are playing games, especially with playing some younger kids,” she said. “We play three games over the next five days, so that will all change quickly. After 12 days, it was nice to get a good win over a really good Highlands team. They played tough, but we did, too.”

Though shots weren’t falling for the Golden Rams from long, mid or short range, frustrations also were building with the Highlands faithful in a disparity of fouls between the teams in the second half. It reached 11-1 against the Golden Rams over the final 16 minutes.

Seniors Kalleigh Nerone and Jocelyn Bielak scored eight points each to lead the Golden Rams.

“The girls kept battling right to the end,” Bennis said.

North Catholic extended a five-point lead at the end of the second quarter to 18-11 on a layup from Sarah Loughry with 6 minutes, 13 seconds to play until halftime.

Those were the last points of the quarter for the Trojanettes.

But Highlands wasn’t able to do much with the opportunity, scoring four points in the second.

Back-to-back field goals from Nerone and Tyarah Woody closed the deficit to 18-15 with 3:10 left in the quarter. The buckets snapped a nearly eight-minute field-goal drought.

But the Golden Rams got no closer until the break.

North Catholic had an extended possession to close the half, but the Highlands defense limited the Trojanettes to two shots: one before and one after a jump ball. Zoey Celko came off the bench and pulled down a pair of key rebounds in the final 30 seconds.

“North Catholic is a good team. We get to see them again,” Bennis said. “I thought we played a good first half and executed more on both ends.”

Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.

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