“They’re all special, but this one’s even more special,” long-time Rams coach Tom Sunderman. “I think a lot of people overlooked us this year because of what we lost. We graduated 45 points (per game). Everybody thought we’d be down. The only people who believed in us were the girls in that locker room.”
Sophomore guard Gracie Cosgrove scored 18 points to lead the Rams, who improved to 23-2 with their 13th straight win since a 63-37 home loss to Alter on Jan. 7. The winning streak includes a 79-56 win at Alter on Jan. 23.
“That was weird,” Cosgrove said of the regular-season series’ revolving road wins. “It’s another step forward, but the step we really to take is to the state semifinals.”
“Alter plays good defense,” Sunderman said. “We got outrebounded in the first game.”
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
The Knights piled up a 58-23 rebound advantage in the first game.
Freshman guard-forward Braelyn Even and senior guard Alyvia each added 11 for the Rams, who are scheduled to meet the Knights in a regional semifinal on Tuesday at Springfield High School. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. in the second game of a doubleheader.
Alter knocked Badin out of last year’s tournament in the regional final.
In Friday’s tripleheader’s opener, Alter weathered a drought of field goals that lasted almost eight minutes bridging the first and second quarters to pull away for a 54-41 win over Summit Country Day. Sophomore forward Maddie Moody overcame foul trouble to lead the Knights with 14 points, starting with the conventional three-point play with 3:07 left in the second quarter that started the comeback from the Silver Knights game-high 11-point deficit.
Alter, the defending Division II state champion and the No. 1 team in the Division II statewide poll, dispatched the third-seeded Silver Knights to earn a berth in the regional semifinals.
Carroll, which reached the 2020-2021 Division II state semifinals, went into the game with a four-game winning streak and wins in seven of its last eight games. The Patriots finish 15-11.
Badin, tied for seventh in the final AP Division II poll, jumped out to leads of 12-0 and 20-3 in the win over Greater Catholic League Co-Ed Division-rival Carroll. The win was the Rams’ third of the season over the fourth-seeded Patriots after sweeping the two-game regular-season.
“They’re loaded,” Carroll coach Ceclia Grosselin said of Badin. “They’re a good team. We knew they’d try to speed us up. We were trying to shut down their 3s.”
The Patriots climbed back into the game and cut the deficit to 26-20. They limited the Rams to six 3-pointers, two below the average they took into the game.
“We start three freshmen,” Carroll coach Cecilia Grosselin said. “I don’t think they were ready for the environment. We told them we were proud of the way they came back.”
“The coaches were a little disappointed.” Cosgrove said about the halftime message. “We were getting outrebounded. We just got outhustled. We had to keep our energy up.”
“As the game went on, we got a little slow,” Sunderman said. “That’s why we started trapping. Carroll’s a good team.”
About the Author