McKenna leads Glenn to LI 'A' title
John Glenn's #14 Allison McKenna takes a foul shot during second half action. (March 9, 2012) Credit: Kevin P. Coughlin
Allison McKenna got the ball in the low post, went up and made a layup.
Again. And again. And again.
The Glenn senior was unstoppable when she got near the basket, which was the majority of the time.
McKenna scored 30 points and had 23 rebounds and 10 blocks to lead Glenn to a 76-65 win over North Shore in the Long Island Class A championship / Southeast Regional Final Friday night at Farmingdale State. It is the third LIC for Glenn (21-1), which advances to the state semifinals to play the winner of Saturday's Rochester East-Grand Island game at 1:30 p.m. Friday at Hudson Valley CC in Troy.
McKenna used her 6-2 frame to her advantage to score 20 points in the second half and finished three shy of her career-high (33).
"I think in the first half we were kind of struggling with the press a little bit. I wasn't getting the ball that much," McKenna said. "So in the second half we knew we had to get it down low -- go inside-out. Everybody hit their outside shots too, so it was a team effort."
North Shore (20-2) jumped to a 17-12 lead in the first quarter. Glenn responded with a 19-12 second quarter and Mackenzie Sivilli's (16 points) basket in the closing seconds of the first half gave the Knights a 31-29 edge at halftime.
Glenn never looked back, expanding its lead with a 12-4 run in the third and went into the fourth quarter up 52-43.
Glenn coach Andy Athanas credited Sivilli for his team's ability to break North Shore's press in the second half.
"We're a man-to-man team. We were able to play man-to-man half court, broke their press when we had to and got it to the half court and was able to get it to McKenna," Athanas said. "We were able to play our style.
"We had to stop what they do, to do what we do. And we were lucky enough to be able to do it."
Glenn contained North Shore's Amanda Johansen to just three points through three quarters. Johansen, a USC-bound lacrosse star, took over in the fourth quarter as she scored 18 of North Shore's 22 points in the frame. Erin Sheerin had 11 points and Caroline Robertson added 10 for the Vikings.
"They were clogging the middle a lot," North Shore coach Keith Freund said. "We weren't getting the ball to the high post . . . We ended up settling for bad shots instead of getting our high post game going."
Johansen converted on a three-point play to cap an 11-4 North Shore run which made the score 60-56 with 3:50 to go but the Vikings would not get any closer.
