Girls Basketball: Ramblers never locate their shooting touch against Trinity

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River Forest, 02/04/12--Loyola's Colleen McShane drives against Trinity's Lauren Prochaska. Trinity HS hosted the 37th annual Girls Catholic Athletic Conference basketball tournament Saturday. | Jon Langham~for Sun-Times Media

Updated: March 10, 2012 8:23AM

For a team that has won 21 games this season, it was reasonable to think that Loyola was going to be able to shake off a poor shooting start against Trinity in the GCAC Red championship Saturday night.

Unfortunately, the Ramblers never found their touch, converting just 18 percent from the floor while dropping a 49-18 decision in River Forest.

“We would get shots but they would not go in, and it was hard to rebound because they are a lot bigger than us,” said Loyola guard Mary Kate O’Malley. “We just tried to keep shooting, but it would not fall in.”

The title game was a rematch of last season’s final, when the Blazers claimed a 39-36 victory.

A three-pointer by O’Malley in the opening minutes cut the Trinity (25-1) lead to 4-3, but baskets did not come easy the rest of the way. The Ramblers managed only two field goals in each of the first three quarters, and did not score in the final period until a Carly Callans bucket with 37 seconds left.

O’Malley also knocked down a three in the second quarter, leading Loyola with just six points.

“It felt hard just to get by them and get our shots open,” explained O’Malley. “We just tried running our offense over and over to get as many shots as we could.”

Loyola (21-7) missed eight straight shots to start the third quarter, but Michelle Ricolcol ended the drought by draining a three-pointer with just over two minutes left in the period. The Blazers’ size advantage made it difficult to rebound misses, as Trinity finished with a 39-21 advantage on the glass.

“They were hitting their (shots) and we were not hitting ours,” said O’Malley. “We have played so many good teams (this season) that we know how to handle ourselves. We feel strongly going into the next few weeks.”

Despite the size mismatch, Lauren Kriz, Kathleen Stralka, Anna Schueler and Sarah Elston each grabbed four boards for Loyola.

With Trinity intent on playing tight man-to-man defense, the Ramblers tried to open things and use the whole half-court on offense.

“That was sort of our approach, with us being smaller than them, we wanted to use some of our quickness and some of our ball handling to beat them,” said Loyola coach Jeremy Schoenecker.

“They switched all of our screens within our motion offense, so we figured our best thing was to beat them off the dribble and kick it out when the help comes. Obviously we did not shoot the ball very well tonight.”