By Dylan Butler
But the best gift the seniors on the St. Francis Prep girls' basketball team received Saturday afternoon came from junior guard Bonnie DeFina. It was her three-pointer from the left wing with 16 seconds left in the fourth quarter that lifted the Terriers to a come-from-behind 58-55 win over Mary Louis. “I just wanted to win for them because I know how hard they work,” DeFina said of the St. Francis Prep seniors. “I just felt like they really deserved to win in their last game on this court. Being that some of my shots were falling and some people were in foul trouble, I just felt like I needed to step up and help them win the game.”DeFina finished with a game-high 27 points and literally carried the scoring load on her back with senior Gina Catherall sidelined for much of the game with foul trouble.”It's a great gift,” Catherall said. “I can't even tell you how excited I am right now.”Catherall, though, redeemed herself by scoring 10 of her 15 points in the fourth quarter of her final home game. After going 4-for-11 from the line, the senior guard buried a pair of free throws with 11.4 seconds left to put St. Francis Prep (6-15, 2-10) up by three. Mary Louis (11-10, 5-6) had a golden chance to tie as Nicole Rose had an open look from the corner. But her game-tying three-pointer rimmed out with 0.8 seconds left and St. Francis Prep celebrated its second win in a row while Mary Louis fell for the third time in four games.”All I needed was a straight follow through and it went crooked at the very end,” Rose said.Despite missing the shot, Rose was spectacular for Mary Louis. Usually the third or fourth option in the Hilltoppers' offense behind leading scorers Casey Shevlin and Maral Javadifar, Rose finished with a team-high 20 points. Shevlin's struggles continued, as she scored 15 and Javadifar had just three points as Mary Louis went from fighting for the No. 2 seed in the Brooklyn/Queens Diocesan Division I playoffs to likely finishing either fourth or fifth.”This isn't rocket science and I'm not Pat Riley or Pat Summit,” Mary Louis coach Joe Lewinger said, referring to the Miami Heat and Tennessee women's coaches. “But I predicted every single thing that happened in the end and it still happened.” “It seemed like what shouldn't have been the inevitable became the inevitable.”What made the victory even more satisfying for St. Francis Prep was that, although DeFina was the leading scorer, there were many contributors. Tara Turner sacrificed her body and was crushed by Amada LeBron while setting a screen on DeFina's winning three-pointer and Justin Clifford had five straight points to get St. Francis Prep to within 46-42 a minute into the fourth quarter.According to St. Francis Prep coach JoAnn Wagner, her team turned things around in a 55-49 win over Bishop Loughlin two days earlier. In that game Catherall had 22 points, but Katie Puccio had a career-game of 12 points and nine rebounds.”We learned our own value and they learned to work together,” she said. “Our team isn't about individuals, it really, really isn't.”Mary Louis went on an 11-3 run and broke a 26-all halftime tie to take a 37-29 lead on a 14-foot jumper by Rose, who scored 11 third quarter points. But St. Francis Prep twice rallied to within one point in the fourth quarter before DeFina knocked down her biggest shot of the season to give the Terriers their first lead of the second half. “We just kept hustling and working hard,” DeFina said. “We could have given up…but we kept our heads up and stayed in there. Everyone made a really big contribution in this game.”Reach Sports Editor Dylan Butler by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 143.
