Irish chances hinge on defense

Photo

Ursuline's Courtney Powell muscles her way between Lisbon defenders #20 Anna Dunn and #12 Julie Gauntt, while on her way to the basket.

By Tom Williams

williams@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

If the Ursuline High girls basketball team earns its third trip to Columbus in eight seasons, they’ll do it with defense.

“We’re getting to the point defensively where we’ve become dominant at that end of the floor,” said Ursuline coach Sean Durkin who guided the Irish to the Division III state title in 2004 and the championship game in 2006.

Durkin says their final game of the regular season demonstrates how well the Irish (16-7) have developed this season.

“We played Akron Hoban,” Durkin said on Tuesday before practice for tonight’s regional semifinal game against Orrville (20-4). “They have a very good program and we held them to 33 points. That was a really good sign in the last game before the tournament.”

For the second straight year, the Irish dominated the district tournament at Mineral Ridge, ousting three Inter Tri-County League teams: Lisbon, 51-26; United, 52-43, and South Range, 62-46.

“We’ve been doing a very good job defensively of kind of contesting everything defensively, making people do some things they aren’t used to doing in the offensive end,” Durkin said. “And we’ve been shooting the ball well; that wasn’t always the case during the year.”

Durkin said the development of senior forward Ja’Niece Whitehead has been instrumental in Ursuline’s growth.

“Ja’Niece Whitehead can watch players bigger than her [as well as] point guards,” Durkin said. “That kind of flexibility really helps our team defensively because we can go a couple of different ways with match-ups.“

Whitehead said last year’s 57-45 regional loss to Smithville has this year’s team motivated.

“Regional is a wonderful opportunity,” Whitehead said. “We went last year, we fought hard and came up short.

“Our chemistry as a team has grown through the season,” Whitehead said. “I feel that we are very comfortable with each other and get past the first-round.”

The Irish will need to stop Orrville sophomore guard Hannah Plybon, who was the Ohio Cardinal Conference player of the year. Plybon averages 20.2 points per game and her team ousted Smithville in district play.

“They’re good, well-coached,” Durkin said of the Riders. “He [Mark Alberts] has like 500 wins coaching boys and girls.”

Actually, Alberts has 501.

Durkin thinks last year’s experience playing at the Cuyahoga Falls regional will pay off.

“Our kids are comfortable with the atmosphere, they’ve been looking forward to the opportunity of getting back there,” Durkin said. “Sometimes, we can be a little overwhelmed with the moment and I don’t see that happening with our kids.”

Leading the Irish are juniors Courtney Powell (14 points, 10 rebounds per game) and Aurielle Irizarry (13 points). Whitehead averages nine points while Irizarry averages three steals.

Senior guard Shantel Boss said the Irish aren’t content with just making the trip.

“Getting back to the regional is a good thing,” Boss said. “I just want to win.

“We had a game that we could have won and then Regina was disqualified,” said Boss of the 2010 regional. “We could have gone to Columbus last year.”

Boss said the Irish’s 49-33 loss last month to Lake Ridge Academy shows her team is prepared.

“I felt we played well against them, we competed,” Boss said. “We lost but we competed and played hard.”