By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
Fatigue and fouls were two unfavorable factors in Ryle’s season-ending 93-78 loss to Louisville Mercy in Friday’s quarterfinal round of the St. Elizabeth Healthcare/KHSAA Sweet 16 girls state basketball tournament at BB&T Arena.
Ryle coach Katie Haitz said that’s what caused the Raiders’ second-half swoon that turned a tight game into a runaway victory for Mercy. The final score set a new girls state tournament record for most total points.
The lead changed hands 17 times before the Jaguars opened up a 63-56 advantage in the final minutes of the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, they pulled away with 20 of their 30 points coming at the free throw line.
Three of Ryle’s starting players fouled out in the fourth quarter. A few seconds after one of them left the game, Haitz was tagged with a technical foul for criticizing an official a little too harshly.
“I feel like we were in the game the whole time until that started happening and we had to get out of our element and start pressing a little bit more than what we wanted to,” Haitz said of the 10 fouls called on her players over a seven-minute span in the third and fourth quarters. “And when that comes, fatigue comes too. You have to run around and press and we didn’t want to do that at the end. So it was a huge factor.”
Mercy ended up with a 32-9 scoring advantage at the free throw line, but there were other deciding factors. The Jaguars also won the battle of the boards by a 41-29 margin and finished with 19 second-chance points. The other eye-catching statistic was Mercy scored 27 points off Ryle’s 19 turnovers.
“There’s lots of things that go into what happened,” Haitz said. “Effort-wise for us, they were giving 110 percent all the time. Things just didn’t go the right way for us, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You just keep fighting and going hard until the clock reaches triple zeros.”
During a rip-roaring first half, the two teams put up a combined total of 63 shots, including 18 3-pointers, and scored 85 points.
The Raiders were 12-of-13 from the field in the first quarter and ended the half shooting 63 percent (17 of 27). At the break, freshman guard Brie Crittendon had 15 points, going 6-for-6 from the field with three treys and three assists.
“Coming into this game, I knew I had to step up,” said Crittendon. “The past couple of games I really haven’t been shooting a lot because, I don’t know why. Tonight, I just had to step up.”
Mercy shot 41.7 percent (15 of 36) in the first half, but the Jaguars kept the game close by scoring 13 second-chance points off offensive rebounds. That’s why there were six ties and 13 lead changes in the first 16 minutes of play.
There were four more lead changes during the first four minutes of the third quarter. Seven of the first 10 field goals were 3-pointers during that period, including one by Mercy sophomore forward Texiah Jenks that gave her team a 59-55 lead.
The Jaguars went on an 11-5 run after that and took a 70-60 lead on a basket by Jenks with 5:47 left in the game. They scored seven points off turnovers during that game-changing run.
“We got a couple turnovers and got a little bit of a lead there, and thank God that was enough to kind of give us the edge that we needed for the rest of the game,” said Mercy coach Keith Baisch. “One thing I believe in with these kids is if we have a lead with four of five minutes to go they can do a good job of spreading it out and hitting free throws.”
There were eight double-figure scorers in the game. The leaders for Mercy were Jenks with 27 and sophomore point guard Hope Sivori with 22. Ryle’s top scorers were Crittendon with 21 and junior guard Lauren Schwartz with 19.
Schwartz was selected for the all-state tournament team. Her two-game totals included 32 points, 20 rebounds, eight assists and seven blocked shots.
The Raiders finish the season with a 29-7 record. They made their debut in the state tournament after winning the program’s first 9th Region championship with two juniors, two sophomores and one freshman in the starting lineup.
“Now we’ve got the next step to look at, which is we want to be in that championship game for the state,” coach Haitz said. “So that’s what we’ll look at (from here) — how are we going to do that and what we have to do to be where we want to be.”
MERCY 25 18 20 30 — 93
RYLE 27 15 14 22 — 78
RYLE (29-7): McGregor 2 0 4, Crittendon 8 1 21, Schwartz 5 6 19, Scherr 6 0 12, Douthit 5 2 16, Glore 1 0 2, Biship 2 0 4. Totals: 29 9 78.
MERCY (24-9): Feldkamp 7 2 16, Jenks 7 11 27, Reese 2 1 5, Sivori 7 4 22, Berger 3 10 16, Shephard 0 1 1, Rivette 1 2 5, Breedlove 0 1 1. Totals: 27 32 93.
3-pointers: R — Crittendon 4, Douthit 4, Schwartz 3. M — Sivori 4, Jenks 2, Rivette.
GIRLS BASKETBALL STATE TOURNAMENT
Friday’s quarterfinals
Mercer County 67, Owensboro Catholic 66
Clark County 42, Elizabethtown 35
Louisville Mercy 93, Ryle 78
Boyd County 71, Louisville Manual 53
Saturday
Mercer County vs. Clark County, 6 p.m.
Louisville Mercy vs. Boyd County, 8 p.m.
Sunday
Championship game, 2 p.m.