D-IV District Girls Basketball: Balanced scoring lifts Elyria Catholic into district final

ELYRIA — Seeing six of your girls score at least six points makes a coach very happy this time of year. That's exactly how Eric Rothgery felt after his No. 5-seeded Elyria Catholic Panthers (17-6) advanced to a Division IV district final at North Ridgeville on Saturday with an easy 59-23 win over No. 19 Niles McKinley (12-10) at the EC Coliseum. The Panthers will play No. 3 Canal Fulton Northwest (20-3), a 58-33 winner over Marlington, on Saturday at 1 p.m. Add in the fact EC outrebounded its opponent by 12 and forced 22 turnovers helped get the offense moving and scoring in transition. It's easy to see why Rothgery was satisfied with the effort. "We figure to get farther in the tournament we're going to have to score some out of transition," said Rothgery. "We had a game toward the end of the year where we had no transition points so we put a little time to it this week trying to push the ball and try to score a little bit in transition. We've got to be able to turn them over once in awhile to do that. "I felt really good how the girls played — came out with a lot of energy — knocked down a couple shots early. Obviously, it makes a difference. You hit a few threes, all of a sudden the defense has to stretch out a little bit. Ari (Dimacchia) and Claire (Petrus) are able to do some things inside." Juliana Cerny, Gabby Rodriguez and Alena Bray hit 3-pointers in the first quarter to help EC begin to take control. The six scorers were led by junior Sophia Niederst with 13 points. She also had five rebounds and a number of assists and steals. "Going into the tournament, it feels great playing here," Niederst said of another game on the Coliseum floor. "Our fans and the energy in here is just really great. We've worked really hard in practice. I think my teammates push me in practice every day. I wouldn't be where I am without them." Petrus (11 points, two blocks), Cerny (10 points, four rebounds and a block), Rodriguez (nine points, five rebounds), Dimacchia (eight points, nine rebounds) and Bray (six with a pair of 3-pointers) contributed to EC's dominant win. The Panthers led 32-12 at halftime and got it to a running clock midway through the final quarter. Rodriguez is the lone senior on the team. Petrus, Cerny and Bray are juniors and Dimacchia is a sophomore. Rothgery has been building the depth of the team all season and it's paying dividends. "That's pretty much been the whole year, pretty balanced," said Rothgery. "That's good. You can't really defend and say we have to figure out how to stop Soph or Gabby or Ari. There's plenty of people that are scoring around 10 points a game." Saturday will be a tough challenge. Northwest had won 16 in a row before dropping its final two regular-season games to Uniontown Lake and North Canton Hoover. "We just got to keep going," said Niederst. "Use this as motivation for moving on to Saturday, don't let up, keep our foot on the gas." Contact Tim Gebhardt at (440) 329-7135 or timothygeb@msn.com. Elyria Catholic 59, Niles McKinley 23 NILES MCKINLEY (23): Kherington Stanford 1-2-4, Alinah Salamah 0-0-0, Ava Ferri 4-2-11, Maddie Yost 0-3-3, Caroline Cormell 1-0-2, Cecelia Gatta 0-1-1, Jazmin Smith 0-0-0, Tori Lanam 0-0-0, Julie Burke 1-0-2. Totals 7-8-23. ELYRIA CATHOLIC (59): Gabby Rodriguez 2-4-9, Claire Petrus 5-1-11, Sophia Niederst 5-3-13, Ari Dimacchia 3-2-8, Juliana Cerny 4-0-10, Alana Bray 2-0-6, Riley Treadway 0-0-0, Nicole BeVier 0-0-0, Trinity Metzinger 0-0-0, Lyla Smith 1-0-2, Capri Aviles-Laurenti 0-0-0, Mary Kay Soltis 0-0-0. Totals 22-10-59 Niles 9 3 8 3 — 23 Elyria Catholic 16 16 16 11 — 59 Three-point goals: Niles 1-7 (Ferri), Elyria Catholic 5-15 (Cerny 2, Bray 2, Rodriguez). Field goals: Niles 7-37 (19 percent), Elyria Catholic 22-45 (49 percent). Free throws: Niles 8-14 (57 percent), Elyria Catholic 10-16 (62.5 percent). Rebounds: Niles 22 (Five with 3), Elyria Catholic 34 (Dimacchia 9). Turnovers: Niles 22, Elyria Catholic 17. Fouls: Niles14, Elyria Catholic 13. Fouled Out: None.