Carey rallies in 2nd half, tops Mohawk in OT

By LONNIE McMILLAN

Sports editor

SYCAMORE — Mohawk came out executing to near perfection, but by the end of the night, Carey’s pressure defense was too much. The Blue Devils forced 30 turnovers and rallied for a 39-35 overtime victory to begin Northern 10 Athletic Conference girls basketball play Tuesday night at Mohawk.

After jumping out to a 14-4 lead in the first five minutes, the Warriors scored just three points in the second half, allowing Carey to erase a 27-16 halftime deficit before winning in the extra period.

“At halftime, I went in and told them, ‘We can actually play better than we did that first half, especially that first quarter,’” Carey coach Keith O’Flaherty said. “They took it to us that first quarter. They were the aggressor. They went right after us. That’s what got us in a little bit of a slump. We kind of fell in a lull where we weren’t working hard. We were almost confused-like, shell-shocked. We got through the second quarter OK, but then we made some adjustments at halftime.”

Mohawk (2-2, 0-1 N10) made 12 of 19 field goals in the first half but just 1 of 13 in the second half when it also committed 15 turnovers.

Rachel Reinhart scored a driving layup with 3:07 remaining to tie the score for the first time since it was 2-2 in the opening minutes. Both teams failed to convert on three different possession after that, and the game went to overtime.

Rylee Row scored a layup shortly after Carey won the tipoff to put Carey on top, and Kelsey Bursby came up with a steal and hit a free throw to make it a three-point game. Kynlee Phillips converted in the post on the next possession, and the Blue Devils were in control 35-30.

AJ Chevalier got Mohawk back within one possession with a basket, but Carey closed it out by going 4 of 6 at the foul line in the final 48.2 seconds after it had made just 4 of 14 before that. Josie Granata hit a halfcourt 3-pointer at the buzzer.

“We talked about being a second-half team where we come out in the third quarter and look at the score as 0-0,” Mohawk coach Natasha Mullholand said. “It doesn’t matter how much we’re up. When we come out in the third quarter, we’ve really got to take care of the ball, especially when we get tired. I stress conditioning come preseason. I told the girls, ‘Maybe that’s something we have to reconsider is maybe we’re not as conditioned as I thought we were because when we get tired, we make those mistakes where we just turn the ball over for no reason.’ Some of it was forced, but some of it was unforced, and that is our own mistake.”

Mohawk’s own defense kept it in the lead despite scoring just three points combined in the third and fourth quarters. Carey still trailed 28-23 at the end of the third quarter but quickly turned two turnovers into three points in the opening seconds of the fourth quarter to make it a two-point game.

The Warriors were great on offense at the start of the game, breaking the Blue Devils’ press for layups, including one for a Mia Miller three-point play, in the opening four minutes.

“We practiced the ball movement on the press breaker with certain cuts and ball movement on certain passes,” Mullholand said. “It’s just X’s and O’s, and for some reason, our minds just went blank in the second half.”

Mohawk did not have a turnover the first six minutes of the game and held its biggest lead at 25-10 on an Allison Russell layup following a Gracie Clouse steal. Carey followed with three straight baskets.

“We went from our 22-press when we first started out,” O’Flaherty said. “We weren’t getting rotations right. We weren’t, when you’re off ball and weakside, rotating back over to help out. We changed it up to our man press, and I think that helped us out. That picked up our energy a little bit too because you could see results coming from it. It picked up our energy level and got us going, and then we just carried that through into the second half.”

Riley Yost scored nine points with six rebounds, while Phillips had nine points and five rebounds to lead the Blue Devils. Reinhart had eight points. Kelsey Bursby scored just three points but had six steals, four assists and four rebounds.

“I told them at the end of regulation there to keep playing four more minutes. ‘Suck it up and play four more minutes,’” O’Flaherty said. “’Dig deep. Play hard, play good defense, and things will take care of itself.’ It seemed like we had momentum there, and you could see that they were getting tired. It just worked out for the best for us.”

Miller scored a game-high 11 points with eight rebounds and four steals, while Gottfried had 10 points and eight rebounds for Mohawk.

The Warriors also lost Saturday at Arcadia after leading for most of the game, but they have to learn and move on, Mullholand said.

“That’s exactly what I told them in the locker room,” she said. “I said, ‘As soon as you get out of this locker room, we’re going to learn from our mistakes from this game, and it’s a new game, and we have to come prepared for the next game, and we have a new day come practice tomorrow, and we have to prepare for Bucyrus on Saturday.’”

Bayah Harsanje scored nine points, with Autumn Bouillon adding eight points in Carey’s 36-28 junior varsity victory. Mohawk’s Emily Brickner had eight points.

Mohawk hosts Bucyrus at noon Saturday. Carey plays at the same time at Seneca East.

CAREY (3-0, 1-0 N10): Yost 4-1-9, Phillips 4-1-9, Reinhart 2-4-8, Row 2-1-5, Bursby 1-1-3, Brodman 1-0-3, Weinandy 1-0-2. Totals 15-46 8-20 39.

MOHAWK (2-2, 0-1 N10): Miller 5-1-11, Gottfried 4-2-10, Granata 2-0-6, Chevalier 2-0-4, Al. Russell 1-0-2, Clouse 1-0-2. Totals 15-37 3-5 35.

3-point goals: Granata 2, Brodman.

Score by quarters

Carey    6                10              7                7                9                — 39

Mohawk                  14              13              1                2                5                — 35

Junior varsity: Carey won 36-28.