By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
ROSENDALE - St. Joseph Christian held North Andrew scoreless in the second quarter and the Lions scored 19 points in the fourth to secure a 45-29 victory over the Cardinals in a Class 2 District 16 quarterfinal at North Andrew High School Tuesday.
The Lions (20-6) jumped out to an early lead, but North Andrew hung in, trailing only 12-10 at the end of the first.
The second quarter wasn't exactly pretty for either team, but Christian managed to put up eight points in that period, while holding North Andrew off the board entirely in the second. The Lions took a 20-10 lead into the locker room.
The third period was a lot more competitive, and once again, North Andrew (15-11) got closer and only trailed 26-20 headed to the fourth.
An early fourth quarter three by Christian's Chloe Burnham swiftly put the Lions up 29-20, and that basically set the tone for the rest of the game.
Burnham made another three late, but Danika Wattenbarger and Jaci Jorgensen each had key triples in the fourth as well to help put the game out of reach. The Lions made four fourth quarter threes in all.
Burnham herself finished with a game-high 22 points.
"We had amazing teamwork tonight," Burnham said. "We were not ready for our season to be over, so that really was nice."
Jorgensen ended with nine, while Wattenbarger tallied seven points.
Senior Brylie Brincks led North Andrew Tuesday with nine points. Madison Lillard and Reagan Walker each had seven.
North Andrew went 9-for-19 at the free throw line in the loss, and the Cardinals were held to just two made threes in the whole game.
Christian was able to recover from their 54-39 loss at North Andrew back on January 31.
"Holding them to zero points (in the second quarter) is really good, because they've toasted us before," Christian head coach Erin Patrick said. "We knew what we did wrong, played what we practice all year and will continue to do that next game and every game after that."
St. Joseph Christian now advances to Thursday's semifinal, where they'll take on city rival and No. 1 seed Bishop LeBlond (23-3). LeBlond beat Christian back on Dec. 6, 56-37, and the Eagles are the No. 1 ranked team in Class 2.
But in postseason play, Patrick says what happened before doesn't really matter now.
"We know we have to learn to play defense on them," Patrick said of LeBlond. "They're a great team, and we'll concentrate on that. We respect them. We can compete with them with our athleticism and score points. Can we rebound and stop them like we did this team?"
Thursday's semifinal will start at 6 p.m. The other semifinal Thursday will be East Atchison (19-7) against Nodaway Valley (19-8). Nodaway Valley walloped Albany Tuesday, 97-38.
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