Benefield: Off night dooms Cardinal Newman girls' North Coast Section hopes

This was not a position the Cardinal Newman girls basketball team usually finds itself in.

The Cardinals, the No. 2 seed in the North Coast Section Division 3 basketball tournament, were down 13-7 to No. 3 seed St. Joseph Notre Dame of Alameda at the end of the first quarter. They were down 23-16 at the half. They were down ?39-25 after three quarters and they were down 54-47 when the final buzzer sounded.

The Cardinals were upset on their home floor in the semifinals of the NCS tournament. Cardinal Newman hasn’t been ousted before the finals since they lost 57-55 to No. 1 Salesian in 2015, when they were still playing Division 4.

The loss doesn’t end the Cardinals’ season, but it likely ousts them from the NorCal tournament’s Open Division. NorCal seedings and division assignments will be announced Sunday.

It was a night of uncharacteristic action for Cardinal Newman. The Cardinals looked tentative in the face of the visiting Pilots’ confidence. The two teams played a similar, up-tempo, high-pressure style, but the Pilots managed to find their way to the rim more often and more successfully.

The normally sharp-shooting Cardinals were cold all night - even from the free-throw line.

“We were really hesitant offensively,” coach Monica Mertle said.

“We have a lot of kids who have not played - prior to this year - ?in this type of game before,” she said. “The two players who have are Avery (Cargill) and Anya (Choice). Tonight we looked a little hesitant and inexperienced in this type of environment.”

Choice, a junior, led the Cardinals with 14 points on the night.

As they have all season, the Pilots brought a balanced attack. Senior Zhane Duckett led all scorers with 16 points, after coming into the contest averaging nearly 10. Malia Mastora, a junior who came in averaging nearly 15 points per game, got exactly that while freshman Talana Lepolo, who averages almost eight points per game, got 13 against the Cardinals Wednesday.

“I can live with the way that we defended,” Mertle said. “There were a couple of easy ones that we could have taken away, but they didn’t have an excessive amount of points. I think we defended well enough to win the game, but offensively we just weren’t clicking.”

There was no greater proof off that than Cargill’s ice-cold night. She thawed out with a mighty effort in the fourth quarter, but it was too late.

Cargill, a varsity starter since she walked in the door as a freshman four years ago, has never not played in the section finals. But try as she might, she could not get her shots to fall Wednesday night.

She was blanked in the first half and didn’t score her first point of the game until she hit a free throw with 5:52 to play in the third quarter. She rallied for 11 points in the fourth quarter, including back-to-back three pointers that, along with a bucket from junior Emma Nordby, pulled the Cardinals to a 51-41 deficit with 1:16 to play, but the Pilots had the ball handlers and the free-throw shooters to ride out the storm of the final 76 seconds.

“We didn’t shoot the ball well, first and foremost,” Mertle said. “I think it was one of those nights and they made us do some things that were out of our comfort zone, just as far as trying to put a lot of emphasis on Avery and Anya. So in that situation, there are opportunities to step up and make plays, and we just were maybe surprised, at times, at how open we were or surprised by the way that they were defending us.”

Nordby pitched in 11 points on the night, but perhaps more importantly, was the source of the Cardinals’ few second chances as she scrapped for rebounds in the post.

Junior Christina Bacci had seven points and Reese Searcy, a freshman, had three points.

“You never want to lose a game, but there are lessons to be learned,” Mertle said. “The lesson to be learned is we need to take our experience in this tournament to the next tournament that we are entering. Sections are over with.”

Cardinal Newman now has nearly a week to prepare for an as-yet-unknown seed in an-as-yet unknown division and against an as-yet-unknown opponent.

But all Mertle was thinking about Wednesday, after her team filed out of the weight room in a silent gloom, was what to do with her 10 players going forward, not what to do with any other team out there.

“We didn’t start particularly well in both of our section games, and so I think we need to use that experience moving forward to make sure we are better prepared at the start of games and just better prepared to compete,” she said. “Hopefully we can use tonight’s game and our previous game to learn so that we don’t have to wait another year until we learn - that’s the goal.”

So with all of the youth on her roster and a gaggle of players who haven’t seen the kind of pressure that a deep postseason run can bring, can this group shake off Wednesday’s result? Not only the loss, but the way the Pilots seemed to dictate the game to the home team instead of the other way around?

Mertle didn’t hesitate.

“They have to,” she said. “How’s that?”

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and on Instagram at kerry.benefield. Podcasting on iTunes and SoundCloud, “Overtime with Kerry Benefield.”