By Bud Milroy
Sports correspondent
One quarter proved to be the different Tuesday night the Catholic Central High School girls basketball team.
The Lady ’Toppers nearly made it all the way back, but fell just short against Shoreland Lutheran in Burlington, 58-56.
CCHS is now 2-3 in the Midwest Classic Conference and 4-7 overall.
“We won three of the four quarters tonight,” said CCHS coach Jeff Behrens, “but that second quarter really killed us.”
Following a solid first quarter, which ended with a 19-12 CCHS lead, Catholic Central could only muster a single free throw in the second. Shoreland, on the other hand, knocked down three of its seven three-pointers in the quarter and posted 17 points to turn a seven-point deficit into a nine-point halftime lead.
“We had opportunities in the second quarter but couldn’t convert, which is frustrating,” Behrens said. “We battled back in the second half and nearly pulled it out.”
In the third quarter, Shoreland extended its lead to 12 early in the period before CCHS cut it to eight going into the final quarter.
A rebound and putback by Kelly Gould plus a turnaround jumper by Amanda Koen cut the lead to three just a minute and a half into the fourth. Shoreland answered with a bucket to push the advantage back to five.
The Lady ’Toppers then squandered two scoring opportunities with a charging call and a layup that rolled off the iron.
Sophie Foote’s basket at the 3:52 mark made the score 48-44, but Shoreland followed with an eight-point run that pushed the lead back to 12 with two minutes left.
The Lady ’Toppers weren’t about to go away, though, as Allie Wiemer hit a pair of free throws and Allie Hocking a three-pointer. Koenen then picked up one of her four steals and scored on a drive to the basket, and Shoreland missed a pair of free throws with 30 seconds left to keep CCHS alive.
Hocking followed with another three-pointer to pull CCHS within two with 16 seconds left. Following a Catholic Central timeout, Emily Held hit the final two of her 10 free throws for Shoreland to seal the victory.
Hocking finished with a basket just before the buzzer, but it wasn’t enough.
Scanning the scorebook after the game, Behrens saw a few things that stuck out other than the frustrating second quarter.
“We had 10 more field goals than they did, but they did hit seven threes, which we never saw in our scouting of them,” Behrens said. “And they were 15 of 19 from the free-throw line. We were only five of 12.
“That hurts.”
Hocking led the Lady ’Toppers with 15 points and six rebounds.
Catholic Central returns to action Saturday with a trip to The Prairie School in Racine at 7:30 p.m.
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