Fairfield Union’s dreams of an undefeated season ended two games short of perfection because Alter just prepared too well.
There seemed to be no debate about that after the coaches and players emerged from their locker rooms in the wake of Alter’s 46-33 victory at Ohio Dominican on Saturday.
How did the Knights handle Fairfield Union’s vaunted press after a shaky start?
“Well, we worked hard on it,” said Alter co-head coach Christina Hart, who noted her team faces similar strategies from their foes in the Greater Catholic League Coed. “We see it almost every night, so that helps us get ready for this kind of environment, too.”
The crowd was decidedly pro-Falcons, whose fans filled up their side of the gym and some of Alter’s as well, but the Knights were not fazed despite three freshmen seeing the floor before anything was decided.
“We had to take care of the ball, and I thought we prepared well during the week for their pressure, and I thought we were just a little rattled in the first quarter and then we settled. Once we settled, it was better,” Hart said.
That came as no surprise to FU coach Keith Barr, whose team was 27-0 entering the state semifinal.
“The league they play in, the schedule they play, they’ve been here before,” Barr said. “I knew they weren’t going to be rattled. I knew their coaches would have them prepared. You know, they’re veterans at this.”
Hart and co-coach Kendal Peck have taken the Knights to 10 final fours and won five championships.
The main reason they will be going for No. 6 next weekend is Maddie Moody, who has been Alter’s do-it-all senior all season and filled that role against Saturday.
Not only did she score a game-high 22 points, she seemed to choose the right time to go get a basket, too.
With her younger teammates trying to find their rhythm in the game, Moody scored 17 in the first half, including multiple trips into the lane to bank in a shot from a difficult angle, against contact (or both).
“And she kind of made it look kind of easy, didn’t she?” Hart said, “but those were huge because it kept us right there in the game. And so I don’t know if you can put words to it really, because you can just watch all the kids (take a sigh of relief) because we’re so young.”
When Moody emerged from the locker room still beaming about the victory, she cited the source of her ability to finish such difficult plays without hesitating.
“I practice them,” she said. “I stay 30 minutes after practice, and I practice everything that has happened in a game before, things that I haven’t finished or been able to make. And I practice those constantly, get reps, and then when we get to a game like this, a close game in the first half, they pull through, they come through, and they were important.”
She also credited junior forward Samantha Pothast for hitting a pair of 3-pointers in the third quarter when neither team was having much success putting the ball in the basket.
“We always emphasize the first two minutes of each quarter and the second half,” Moody said. “We know it’s not going to be a perfect game, but once we get up, we know there’s some room for like little mistakes here and there, but we try to eliminate those mistakes also.”
The 18-9 Knights might not be perfect, but they earned another week of practice to iron out those mistakes and go for state championship No. 6 against Bellevue on Friday afternoon at UD Arena.
FRIDAY’S GAME
Division IV State Championship
Friday, March 14
Alter vs. Bellevue at UD Arena, 4:15 p.m.
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