Ascension falls to St. Celestine in title game
By Rick BehreN Contributor January 31, 2012 5:08PM
Ascension's Katie Mullins (right) and St. Celestine's Annie McKenna scramble for the loose ball, during the league championship game Saturday at Trinity. | Joe Cyganowski~For Sun-Times Media
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Updated: March 3, 2012 8:42AM
The Ascension eighth-grade girls basketball team knew it had a mountain to climb when it faced off against St. Celestine for the Classic League championship Saturday at Trinity High School in River Forest.
Their opponents were riding a 150-game winning streak since they began playing together as fifth-graders, and already had beaten the Chargers during the regular season. Ascension put up quite a battle in the first encounter, losing by 10 points, but this time it was all St. Celestine as the Celtics jumped ahead early and took home the title trophy with a 41-19 victory to complete a perfect four-year run at 151-0.
“At the beginning of the game I just told the girls to go out there and give it all they could, and leave it all on the floor since this was the last Classic League game they were going to play,” Ascension head coach Emma Cullen said. “I was really proud of the effort they gave. This is a good team that we played, but we could only control what we do. We tried our best and that’s all I ask of my players.”
Cullen congratulated the St. Celestine squad on the championship and the incredible record they compiled.
“They’re a good team, they sure don’t play like they’re in eighth grade,” she said. “The last time we played them we lost by about five baskets. We played them tough the entire game and I was very proud of the way the girls played, not just today but the entire year — we only had two losses. We have 17 girls on the team and it’s part of my job and our school mission to get everyone in to play, and especially experience a championship game. So that’s what we did today.”
After St. Celestine’s Shannon Faherty (game-high 12 points) scored the first basket of the game, Ascension’s Katie Mullins made it 2-1 when she was fouled and hit 1-of-2 from the free-throw line. However, that was all the Chargers would put on the board in the first quarter as the Celtics reeled off 11 straight points to lead 13-1.
Mullins (11 points, 6 rebounds) popped in two more buckets for Ascension in the second quarter and Ally Oliva canned a free throw, but St. Celestine’s Kaitlin Aylward (10 points) and Classic League MVP Annie McKenna (11 points) found their shots and scored eight and five points, respectively, in the second period to give the Celtics a 28-5 halftime cushion.
Grace Smart put up four points and pulled down four rebounds and blocked a shot for Ascension, while Tiernaur Anderson contributed three points.
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