Cougars No Match for Surging Colts

You could hear a pin drop.

That's how Calhoun girls basketball coach Dave Radtke described the bus ride home from Great Neck on Tuesday after the first place Rebels snapped the Lady Colts three game winning streak. 

That's until Radtke directed the bus driver to pull over at a McDonald's, where the Colts were treated to Happy Meals.  The rest of the trip back to Calhoun was "happy and jovial," as Radtke put it, and whatever was in those burgers must have held some magical power.

Because, yesterday afternoon, after quickly falling behind Kennedy 7-0, the Colts ran all over the visiting Cougars on their way to a 53-35 victory. 

"We knew that when playing a team like Kennedy where the rivalry is really strong, you really want to give it your all," said guard Katie Berghorn, who finished with 11 points for the Colts, including three from beyond the arc.

Before the game even started, the scoreboard had Kennedy leading 2-0.  The scoreboard was reset, but it took it didn't take long for the Cougars to light it back up.  Kennedy rattled off three buckets, including a trey from senior Allie Keller, to race out to the lead.

"When we were down 7-0, I was like uh-oh," Radtke said, but the coach wouldn't have to wait long for his team to turn it around. 

The Colts (3-3 in Conference AA-II) pounded the ball inside to Meghan O'Sullivan, who drew fouls left and right, finishing with 16 points, 10 of which came from the charity stripe.

But the game was won on the outside, where Berghorn and sophomore guard Danielle Losee ran wild.  That tandem combined for eight three-pointers on the day; Losee hit five of them and scored a game-high 18 points.

A Berghorn trey at the end of the first quarter put the Colts up 16-14 and they would never trail again. 

"It took them a while to get into rhythm," Kennedy coach Debra Cipolla-Minafo said of the Colts.  "They started hitting their three-point shots and we weren't covering them well enough."

The Colts opened the second quarter on an 11-0 run before baskets from Keller and Steph Roney kept the game from getting away.  The teams headed into the half with the Colts on top 31-22.

Both clubs came out sluggish to start the third quarter until the Cougars began to make some noise.  Taylor Kruter scored the first points of the quarter with 5:26 to go, and a driving shot by junior guard Carly Thea, who led the Cougars with 13 points, found the bottom of the net. 

Kennedy (4-2) held the Colts to just five points in the third to cut Calhoun's lead to 36-32. 

But any momentum the Cougars may have been riding was immediately erased when the final quarter began.  Calhoun knocked down six straight points and Losee's fifth three-pointer with less than 2:30 to play put the game well out of reach.

Kennedy got plenty of open looks, but the ball was rolling in-and-out of the hoop all day long.

"Nothing was falling," Cipolla-Minafo said.  "If we are missing layups, we are not going to win against a team like this."

After the game, even Radtke had trouble explaining his team's complete dominance. 

"I honestly don't know what to say," he said, with a smile on his face.  "I'm shocked. Bellmore is a good team.  They didn't win the conference last year for no reason."

Kruter, one of Kennedy's leading scorers, was held to six points and she said her team may have underestimated the Colts.

"We just got overconfident," Kruter said. "We thought it would be easy to just run the ball, but it wasn't."

Radtke credited O'Sullivan, senior Erin Green and sophomore Jessica Ruggiero with shutting down Kruter on the inside.

"When they play defense like that, they are a tough tandem," Radtke said.

The Cougars try to turn it around when they host Freeport at 7 p.m. next Tuesday. 

The Colts, who lost their first six games of the season, visit Syosset on Saturday at 2 p.m.  The Braves beat the Colts last month, but they won't be facing the same team this weekend.

"Right now, they think they can beat anyone," Radtke said. 

Sometimes all it takes is a Happy Meal to get back on track.