WEXFORD, Pa. – Twice during its 56-44 win over Greensburg Central Catholic in the PIAA Class 2A girls’ semifinals Monday night, Kennedy Catholic scored right before the quarter horn, and those two shots played a big role in the victory.
At the end of the first half with the game tied at 21, Monique Vincent beat the horn with a 3-pointer from the left corner to give the Golden Eagles a 24-21 halftime lead.
Then, at the end of the third quarter, Vincent was at it again this time making a nice cut on an out-of-bounds play that turned into a layup that put Kennedy Catholic ahead 40-30 going to the fourth quarter.
Not only were both of those baskets key in the victory, but they also weren’t accidents.
“We’ve been working on special situations for the last three weeks,” Kennedy Catholic head coach Justin Magestro said. “I have one second, four seconds, out of bounds. We really prepped. We didn’t know we would need it in the first half. We were hoping we didn’t need it at the end. We needed it at the end of the first half, and it worked.”
So much was Kennedy Catholic prepared for these types of situations, Magestro called timeout after the Golden Eagles got a turnover at the end of the third quarter with 6.7 seconds left to set up the Vincent layup.
“It didn’t happen by mistake,” Magestro said. “We work on these things. These kids have high basketball IQs and are pretty athletic. They love one another.”
Magestro didn’t take the sole credit for the play, giving a nod to his coaching staff.
“I have a great coaching staff,” Magestro said. “We will talk every timeout .,. I have coaches that aren’t even on the bench that help me out giving me film … It takes a village to overcome these types of things. I am blessed to make those, but am I awed? No. We practice that every day. We try to execute it, and we made the shots.”
