Maintaining the pace was a challenge for the SS. John and Paul girls basketball team Saturday in its Division IV sectional tournament semifinal game, but coach Nick Iarocci believes his team has progressed to the point that it is ready to take the next step to respectability.
The 13th-seeded Heralds found themselves up against a seventh-seeded Wellsville team that preferred to run almost without exception and fell into the Tiger trap to the tune of a 60-32 loss. It ended the season for SJP (4-17) and advanced Wellsville (10-11) to a sectional championship game Thursday at Hubbard High School against second-seeded McDonald.
“They’re a very uptempo team with a lot of really good athletes,” Iarocci said. “They don’t run much halfcourt offense at all. It’s pretty much all transition.
“They’re like the Phoenix Suns, trying to get a shot off every 10 seconds. We did OK when we were in half-court sets, but the whole key was we couldn’t keep them in halfcourt offensive sets. Their leading scorer (Mikyla Tipton) had 20 of her (22) points by halftime.”
That led to the Tigers building an 18-8 lead after the first quarter and having the game clinched by halftime at 33-17.
So Iarocci decided to try and keep up with the Jones, or in this case, the Tigers in the second half.
“We finally decided to just try to run with them,” he said. “Actually, it went OK, but they’re just so fast.”
Wellsville also got 15 points from Meima Dalrymple. SJP’s best answer was seven points from senior Nicole Gallo in her final game, while fellow senior Kristina Krumins and sophomore Kristina Gallo had six points each.
Despite Saturday’s outcome, Iarocci believes the Heralds have made vast improvements.
“We won more games than we did last year,” he said. “Our big challenge this year was to try and be better than last year, and I think every girl did that in every category.”
His eight seniors, who also included Jenna Foglio, Carly Penna, Amanda Reed, who was injured most of the year, Melanie Romano, Nicole Tolbert and Mikenzie Zullo, made that happen.
“I think our seniors did a lot to get us pointed in the right direction,” Iarocci said. “We have a good nucleus coming back with Ashley Fedler, Sara Blank and Kristina Gallo and I’m excited about our freshmen and sophomore, not to mention our junior high girls.
“We lose a lot of seniors, but we’ll still have a lot of girls in the program, so I think we’re in pretty good shape and can continue to improve.”
— Karl Pearson
