Beasley steps up as Irish top rival

By Greg Gulas | January 21, 2011 at 12:07a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

The streaking Ursuline High girls basketball team has a deadly one-two punch in Aurielle Irizarry and Courtney Powell.

That is why coach Sean Durkin expects opponents to pay extra special attention to them over the course of the game.

When a sophomore throws her deadly shot into the mix, then opponents can only wonder what hit them.

Sydney Beasley scored a game-high 16 points, nailing all four of her team’s buckets from beyond the arc as the Irish defeated rival Mooney, 55-46 Thursday at the Ursuline gymnasium.

The win was Ursuline’s (7-2) fifth straight.

“We’re maturing each time out and growing game by game, but we’re going to need to continue that growth if we expect to make some noise the rest of the season,” said Durkin, whose Irish was without Irizarry in the teams’ first meeting, a 52-38 Ursuline win on Dec. 18. “We know that teams are going to focus their attention on both Aurielle and Courtney, so we have been working the other players to make sure they step up their game a notch as well.

“It was comforting to see Sydney find her confidence and carry us tonight.”

Five points by Beasley helped Ursuline to the early 8-0 lead, but five points each by Chyna Davis and Christine Pelini keyed a 13-2 run for Mooney (5-8) as they built a 13-10 advantage.

With three seconds remaining in the period, however, Beasley connected on her second 3-pointer of the frame to knot the score at 13.

“We’re on a five-game win streak and the key to that run has been a solid overall effort,” Beasley said. “Tonight, my teammates got me the ball at the right time and you cannot ask for anything more that.”

Trailing 22-17 at the midway point of the second period, the Cardinals scored the final four points of the frame, the last coming on a bucket by Taylor Woytek with under a minute left as Mooney pulled within a point.

A bucket by Woytek and a 3-pointer by Jamie DiDomenico then gave Mooney a 33-32 advantage with a little over a minute to play in the third stanza.

A triple by Beasley and a hoop by Rakia Levesque then helped the Irish close with a 5-0 run and a 37-33 margin with one quarter remaining.

Consecutive buckets by Woytek knotted the game for the final time at 41-all at the 5:52 mark of the fourth quarter, but a 14-5 run by Ursuline to close the game iced the win.

“Give Ursuline credit because they play hard, have plenty of emotion and come to win; we’re still trying to learn that,” Mooney coach Bill Ritter said. “Our game plan was to stop [Courtney] Powell and [Aurielle] Irizarry from scoring in double figures and we succeeded with half of that plan.

“We couldn’t get the ball inside or get to the free throw line and that proved to be costly.”