IWA Fights Off Late St. Joe Surge To Win 50-45

Figuratively shot in the head and left for dead, the St. Joe basketball team got off the floor and made a game of it Saturday before falling to arch rival Incarnate Word Academy 50-45. This marks probably the most disappointing week in St. Joe history.

Thursday, they were chewed up and spit out by Bolingbrook Illinois by 27 points in the Coaches vs Cancer Shootout at Scott Trade Center.

Down by as many as 18 with four minutes to go, the Angels stormed back on the red-hot hot three point shooting of Maddie Stock and the aggressive play of Erin Nelson to make it a game.

Coach Dan Rolfes maintains his mastery over the Angels. Bigger, stronger and much more physical, the Red Knights fought off the late surge to mark the second win of the season over the visitors. At Christmas, IWA repeated as champs of the Visitation tournament with a narrow win over St. Joe.

Rolfes was anything but pleased with what he saw on the court before an overflow crowd.

“They (the refs) let them play tackle football out there the last few minutes,” he said while celebrating students stormed the court.

“Down the stretch we just didn’t do our jobs. Luckily, we hit some clutch free throws to hang on.”

Maddie Stock stepped out and hit a couple of long-range three pointers to put St. Joe back into contention. With a minute left in the game, Maddie Stock hit both ends of a one and one, pulling with three, 48-45 and that’s as close as it got.

Lateesha Deloach, who scored nine points in the victory hit both ends of a one and one with 23.3 seconds left to sew up the victory.

Coach Julie Matheny had her team in lock up for quite a bit of time after the game. She cared not to repeat what she told her girls behind closed doors.

She did say: “We cannot go out and play just one good quarter and expect to beat Incarnate Word.  We told our team not to give up first half three pointers and they scored six of them.”

The difference, probably comes in the weight room. Player for player, they are heavily outweighed by the Red Knight players. “For whatever reason, our players chose not to spend a lot of time in the weight room. That is their choice. Incarnate was the quicker more physical team in this game,” said Matheny.

Taylor Manual a physical specimen led IWA in scoring with 14. Maddie Stock range up 22 points, mostly from long range. Nelson came alive in the second half, scoring six of her seven points after the buzzer.

Incarnate goes to 14-6, St. Joe fell to 18-4.