JEFFREY REINHART jreinhart@LNPnews.com
FREDERICKSBURG – If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Lancaster Catholic hasn’t – for 27 years.
Veteran kids. Holdover kids. A whole flock of new kids. Doesn’t matter.
Catholic coach Lamar Kauffman, who recently began his 27th season calling the shots for the Crusaders, has always preached one thing, and one thing only:
Defense.
Press. Trap. Press some more. Trap again.
The Crusaders used a key defensive stretch to seize control for good Wednesday night against Northern Lebanon in a Lancaster-Lebanon League Section 3-4 crossover game.
Locked in a 21-all tie midway through the second quarter, Catholic took the lead for good on back-to-back inside buckets by Madeline Sloan.
And then the Crusaders turned up the D pressure, forcing seven second-quarter turnovers on the way to a 37-26 lead at the half and to a 60-43 triumph over the pesky Vikings.
Catholic improved to 2-0 in league games and to 4-1 overall, while Northern Lebanon slipped to 1-1 in league games, 2-4 overall, and had its modest two-game winning streak snapped.
Catholic is breaking in four new starters this season – and has just three seniors on the roster — and the lone holdover, senior guard Emily Weaver, missed Wednesday’s game with a back injury. So Kauffman has spent the first couple of weeks this season drilling his troops on the fine-art of playing his brand of defense.
The Crusaders forced 23 turnovers against the Vikings, who spent a good chunk of their night just trying to get the basketball over half court and get their offense set up.
To her credit, Northern Lebanon point guard Liz Houser never stopped attacking Catholic’s pressure. In between dodging double-teams she managed to score a season-high 15 points to pace the Vikings. Nichole Heister chipped in with 11 points for Northern Lebanon.
But the Crusaders’ D eventually took a toll.
“The biggest thing about Catholic’s press is the mental fatigue,” Northern Lebanon coach Ken Battistelli said. “Against them you need to be mentally thinking every single second because that press just wears on you. We lost some concentration there for two or three minutes (midway through the second quarter) and they just hammered us.
“That’s to their credit because that’s how Catholic is built – to take advantage of your mistakes. They know how to get in the passing lanes, they know how to run and they know how to finish. It seems like they’re always solid there. And that’s a credit to their coach.”
That would be Mr. Kauffman, who earned his 627th-career win Wednesday night.
While everyone pitched in on defense, two players helped out immensely on offense and on the glass.
Sophomore lefty guard Jen Roehm scored 17 of her career-high 23 points in the first half, including 12 points in the pivotal second quarter, when the game was deadlocked at 17, 19 and 21 before Catholic kicked it up a notch. Northern Lebanon never led.
“The basket was this big,” Roehm said, stretching her arms as far apart as she humanly could. “Maybe even bigger.”
Meanwhile, Sloan, a junior forward, hit the back-to-back shots in the key to put the Crusaders ahead for good, kick-starting a 16-5 spree to end the half. She finished with a career-high 14 points and yanked down a game-high 11 boards – eight in the third quarter, when Catholic out-rebounded the Vikings 21-15.
The Crusaders, who survived 23 turnovers of their own, won the battle of the boards in the game, 52-32.
“I wanted to step up, definitely,” Sloan said of her two post spin moves to start the second-quarter uprising. “I wanted to help us get a lead and get everyone going and get the team motivated.”
Mission accomplished.
Sloan hit another shot in the lane and subs Brittany Bechtold and Ariana Nazario each scored during the run, when Catholic went from being knotted at 17-all to up 37-26 in a blink of the eye.
“We had a slight lapse of focus, and Lancaster Catholic is built to take care of that,” Battistelli said. “They were all over the place.”
Particularly Roehm, who scored from inside and out, on the break and in set patterns. And Sloan, who dominated the glass.
Through five games, Roehm gave Catholic’s D a passing grade – but knows the Crusaders’ have a long way to go in that department.
“We’re doing well defensively,” Roehm said. “I know we’ve been hustling hard — but we’re coming along fast.”
But fast enough to be major players in the Section 4 race, which features defending champ Lancaster Mennonite and Single-A powerhouse Lebanon Catholic? Or the District 3 Triple-A race – Kauffman’s favorite – which will include Mid-Penn powerhouse Trinity this season?
Kauffman is hoping his young pups continue to improve from practice-to-practice and game-to-game.
“My job,” Kauffman said, “is to make them realize that they can play this game. Being young doesn’t mean you can’t play this game. I’m trying to teach them when they’re on the floor and trying to teach them when they’re on the bench. And they’re also going to have to help each other out.
“We’re making some mistakes, yeah. But I think a lot of that is because we’re so young. The kids are definitely trying to help each other out … we just have to start eliminating those ‘young’ mistakes.”
Then Kauffman paused and smiled.
“We’re not dead in the water,” he said.
With that D – regardless of all the new faces – Catholic is seemingly never out of it.
