Kelsey Thompson led St. Bede with 13 points. Her teammate Mo Dean was nipping at her heals with 12 points. Hall’s Becca Herrmann had eight points.

“It was good to come out and get a lead, especially with the strategy we are trying to employ,” St. Bede coach Tom McGunnigal said.

“It’s a win. In the postseason you want to keep moving on. You’re always nervous and a little apprehensive for that first game, especially when you are playing the host school on their home floor after they’ve won a game. But, the girls responded well. We stayed strong. We had a couple of turnovers that I think were due to nerves or a little bit of uneasiness. But hey, we still won by 30 points. The girls played well.”

The Lady Devils hustled, but it was to no avail. The Lady Bruins hit two early threes as Hall was deferring to covering up Dean in the paint with an inverted 2-3 zone.

At the end of the first quarter, St. Bede was up 15-3. The Bruins slowed down a bit in the second only scoring eight points as Hall posted six points. At halftime the score was 23-9 St. Bede.

“I thought we played pretty well, but we did not play well the first 6 minutes.  We panicked against their press even though we prepared for it and that put us in a hole to start,” Hall coach Mike Struna said.

In the third quarter, Hall put up a good fight, outscoring the Lady Bruins 7-6. Unfortunately for Hall, the Lady Bruins had already closed the door.

St. Bede managed 21 points in the fourth quarter with Hall netting four.

The girls worked hard on defense only giving up 29 points after three periods which gave us a chance going into the fourth period. But we ran out of gas and did not do a good job early in the fourth period closing out on their shooters and that led to three treys which opened up their lead,’ Struna said.