St. Vincent-St. Mary girls basketball just misses first trip to regional final since 2019
MANSFIELD — A more forgiving rim might have the St. Vincent-St. Mary girls basketball team moving on to a Division II Mansfield Regional final in a few days.
Instead, the iron stood strong and Bryan advanced to the state elite eight for the first time in school history with a 44-43 win over the Fighting Irish on Tuesday.
“This loss doesn’t make me any less proud of the season we had,” STVM coach Carley Whitney said. “It’s a really special group. We’ll be back.”
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The Irish (20-5) were almost moving on. It really was that close.
A baseline runner by Marah Smith with 18.8 seconds left gave the Golden Bears (24-2) the lead for good and forced STVM into a timeout with 11.4 seconds left.
Fighting Irish just misses an amazing comeback
Whitney drew up a play and Adrena Gordon ran it to near perfection, but her shot hit the rim. Erica King (12 points, seven rebounds, two assists) grabbed the rebound and barely missed. Jazmin Torres (13, five, three) followed suit and Bryan survived to play Norwalk (23-3) on Friday.
“This is going to fuel a fire for us to come out next year,” King said. “We’re going to come out harder and will be ready to work. I feel like we didn’t come out with the best start. It brought us down, but we came out with a different spirit. We showed the St. V mentality. I’m proud that we came out and gave ourselves an opportunity to win.”
That statement was as big as the near comeback win by the Irish, who trailed by as many as 14 in the second quarter.
STVM staved off solid efforts from Blayze Langenderfer (11 points, four rebounds), Ella Rau (nine, seven) and Ella Voigt (nine, three) and made it a 36-29 deficit through three quarters.
Torres gave the Irish the lead with 56.8 seconds left before Smith’s heroics ended things.
STVM looking toward what could be magical 2023-24 in girls basketball
“This is huge to get here,” Torres said. “Out of 208 teams, we’re the last 16. It definitely will fuel us for next year to do better and hopefully get past this.”
The bad part for the Irish is that Torres (11.2 points per game) and Dyllan Metcalf (7.0) graduate.
The good of STVM’s first regional appearance since 2019 is that everyone else will be back.
Although there were tears, there was also a determination in the bunch to use the state sweet 16 experience heading into next season.
“The future is bright at St. Vincent-St. Mary,” Whitney said. “It’s hard to try to put all your words from the season into five minutes after the game. I’m sure I could give better content tomorrow, but every kid in this program made a positive imprint in our program this year. They grew. I couldn’t be more proud to coach them and be a part of their lives. They made every day for me positive and good.”
Obviously, the loss stings, but the drive is already there for 2023-24.
“Next year starts right now and goes into the summer,” King said. “We have to prepare for next year so we come out ready.”
Contact Brad Bournival at bbournival@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter at @bbournival.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: STVM valiant in tough loss to Bryan, already focused for next season
