No. 1 North Catholic girls use early surge to put away Freeport

By: HSSN Staff
Thursday, January 3, 2019 | 11:21 PM

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The Freeport girls basketball team found itself playing catch-up after it fell behind by double digits in the first three minutes of Thursday’s Section 1-4A clash with North Catholic.

The Yellowjackets trimmed the deficit under 10 several times, but in the end, the Trojanettes, the No. 1 team in the Trib HSSN WPIAL Class 4A rankings, came away from Freeport Middle School with a 75-63 victory.

“I knew the girls would be up for this game. It was a big game for both of us in the section,” North Catholic coach Molly Rottmann said. “We knew they would have a big crowd, and it would be like a playoff atmosphere. Our kids were excited about it.”

North Catholic (7-1, 4-0) bounced back from its lone loss of the season, a 51-46 setback to 5A No. 4 Penn Hills last week.

The Trojanettes came out firing with back-to-back 3-pointers from Kylee Lewandowski and Cassie Foster.

After a layup from Haley Graham got No. 4 Freeport on the board, North Catholic added buckets from Foster and Tess Myers and a pair of free throws from Lewandowski to build a 14-2 advantage with 4 minutes, 54 seconds left in the first quarter.

Myers led all scorers with 26 points, and Lewandowski added 16 points and nine rebounds as the Trojanettes held a decided rebounding advantage.

“It’s your first game after the holiday, it’s a big section game and you’re playing away, so we talked about getting off to a quick start,” Rottmann said. “The kids responded well.”

Freeport (7-2, 3-1) was able to whittle the early 12-point deficit down to six on Samantha Clark’s 3-pointer in the waning seconds of the first quarter.

“I was proud of the effort,” Freeport coach Fred Soilis said. “The girls were getting adjusted to it, and we did as well as we could. We battled back.”

North Catholic led by 13 at halftime, and a second-chance layup by Dani Short (eight points, 11 rebounds) made it a 15-point advantage just a minute into the third.

The Yellowjackets responded and cut it to 57-50 with 1:47 left in the quarter, but Lucy Waskiewicz, who had seven points off the bench for the Trojanettes, drilled a 3-pointer 40 seconds later to put the visitors back up by 10.

“Our kids have been in a lot of big games this season,” Rottmann said, “and they did a nice job of weathering Freeport’s runs.”

North Catholic extended its lead to as much as 20 three minutes into the fourth quarter before a late Freeport push set the final.

“There were some things we broke down on, and one of them was boxing out,” Soilis said. “They got a lot of second-chance rebounds. We prepared for everything that we saw. I told the kids there wasn’t anything we didn’t see before, from their sideline break, and we worked on rotating help. But there were times where we broke down and didn’t get there.”

Freeport had three players finish in double figures, led by 19 from Madeline Clark. Graham hit a trio of 3-pointers in the second quarter en route to 17 points.

Harley Holloway added 12 points for the Yellowjackets, and Sidney Shemanski scored nine points and recorded 13 rebounds.

Freeport made nine 3-pointers and was 12 of 16 from the foul line.

“I like where we are (against North Catholic),” Soilis said. “Last year, they beat us pretty badly at home, and the second time we went there and only lost by only 13. Tonight, it was by 12. I told the girls there’s nothing to hang their heads about. Hanging with this team and not backing down prepares us to play with pretty much anybody.”

Michael Love is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Michael at mlove@tribweb.com or via Twitter @MLove_Trib.

Tags: Freeport