The athletic administrators at Mother McAuley don’t make mistakes very often, but this was a rather large boo-boo.
McAuley’s schedule showed a basketball game with Hillcrest Tuesday evening. Well, there was an event at McAuley’s gym, but it was no game. It was more like a basketball clinic.
Eighth-ranked McAuley used 20 steals and Maggie Moore’s 22 points to hammer No. 11 Hillcrest 81-32.
So dominant were the Mighty Macs (2-0) that Moore played little more than a half.
“We were really up for this game,” said Moore, who contributed six steals and three rebounds.
Up? Moore scored six points in the first 87 seconds, 12 in the first quarter and wound up with 20 by halftime.
“Maggie played like that in our first game against Resurrection,” McAuley coach Barb Edwards said. “Our eight seniors are working really well together.”
The 5-foot-5-inch Moore was just the beginning for the Mac attack.
Fellow senior Beth Dilling managed 11 points, five steals and seven rebounds as Edwards substituted liberally. Of McAuley’s 36 field goals, 28 were layups.
“We went deep in our bench and the level of play didn’t change,” said Edwards, whose team will play host to top-ranked Loyola Monday after facing St. Benedict Saturday.
Akyla Catlin, a 5-11 junior, managed a team-high eight rebounds, eight points and four assists; 6-2 senior Natalie Novick contributed seven rebounds.
“We want to play all the good teams,” Edwards said, “and see how we stack up against Loyola and everyone else.”
Against Hillcrest (3-1), McAuley had few questions about how it stacked up. Hillcrest’s outstanding junior Shavonna Hunter had 17 points to outscore the rest of her teammates.
The Hawks went without a field goal the entire second quarter and didn’t break the drought until Hunter’s jumper with 3 minutes 8 seconds left in the third quarter.
“Our inexperience really showed tonight,” said Hillcrest coach John Maniatis. “They’re a big-time program. We did a horrendous job with our transition defense. We got waxed tonight.”
