PEABODY — It certainly wasn’t pretty, but somehow the Bishop Fenwick girls basketball team made just enough good plays to prevail, 45-42, Wednesday night in a non-conference game against visiting Lynn English.
The Crusaders (10-4) won it in spite of themselves, surviving a 26-turnover performance to punch their ticket to the tournament with their 10th win of the season.
Fenwick’s Annie Murphy had a monster game, notching a double-double with 15 points, 15 rebounds and five blocked shots. Maria Orfanos was also in double figures with 11 points, three assists and a steal. Freshman Isabella Romero also had a good game with 12 rebounds, and six points.
English’s Mashayla Johnson led all scorers with 19 points that included four threes, two of them coming late in the game to make it a one-possession game. Kylia Reynoso was also in double figures with 12 points.
“This was definitely not our best effort and we just made so many turnovers for seemingly no reason,” said Fenwick coach Adam DeBaggis. “I told them at halftime that we had two times as many turnovers as shots it seemed. We’d just look at the player and throw it to the other team. There’s just no excuse for that.”
Despite the loss, English coach Mackenzie Charles was proud of his team.
“We just couldn’t make a shot and we missed nine free throws in the first half to be down by 10,” he said. “I still have to credit my girls who even though they couldn’t make anything, they worked hard at the other end to get defensive stops to keep us in the game. They beat us to the 50-50 balls, but we needed a game like this against a good team to prepare us for the tournament. We’ll just go and watch the film and get better.”
English jumped out to a 6-4 lead midway through the first quarter after a baseline drive and bucket by Reynoso. Orfanos drained a floater to tie the game at 6-6, then Murphy converted a couple of free throws to give Fenwick the lead for good at 8-6. Fenwick closed out the quarter with a 7-3 run, the final points on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Emma Burke (six points), to take a 15-9 lead into the second quarter, all of this in spite of eight turnovers.
Burke drained another trey to start the second and bump the lead to 18-9. The Crusaders led by as many as 12 before a couple of Johnson free throws on a one-and-one got the English deficit down to 10, 22-12, going into the halftime break.
In the third, the Bulldogs got as close as four, 25-21, after Reynoso completed an old-fashioned three-point play with a little less than three minutes to go in the quarter.
After Veronica Tache (six points, four rebounds, two assists) answered with a three, a Murphy free throw and Orfanos hoop gave the Crusaders some breathing room at 31-22 with about a minute to go in the quarter which ended with Fenwick on top, 33-24.
Trailing 35-26, Johnson made things interesting when she drained back-to-back threes to make it a three-point game, 35-32, with about five minutes left.
English still was in it, trailing 39-35 with 50 seconds left, but a big defensive play by Tache, standing her ground to take a charge, gave the ball back to Fenwick, which executed its prettiest play of the game to put the game out of reach when Murphy fed Orfanos on the back door for an uncontested layup.
“That’s like in golf when you have 40 terrible shots, but then you hit that one good one that makes it all worth it,” said DeBaggis.
Both teams are back in action Friday night with Fenwick traveling to Cathedral and English traveling to Winthrop.
“We lost to them (Cathedral) by 20 points the first time around, so we are hoping for a better result this time around,” said DeBaggis.