Kennedy Girls Trip Up Good Counsel, Peekskill

SOMERS—With their wins over Good Counsel and Peekskill, the Kennedy Catholic girls basketball team has now won five straight. The Gaels are now 6-2 with league play looming just over the horizon.

BASKETBALL
KENNEDY	54
Good Counsel 35
KENNEDY	39
Peekskill 27

Right: Kennedy's Amanda Viteretti was named the game's MVP in a win over Good Council Sunday SKIP PEARLMAN Playing at the County Center in White Plains as part of the Slam Dunk tournament, the Gaels beat Good Counsel, 54-35, in a Sunday afternoon game. After building a 12-point halftime lead, the Gaels struggled in the third and needed a strong fourth quarter to pull away.

“In the third quarter we came out sluggish, they hit a couple of big jump shots, got a couple of fast breaks and brought the game to within three,” said Gaels coach Al Morales. “In the fourth we picked up the intensity, extended the man to man to full court, and were very fortunate to get a couple of quick fast breaks, and a couple of deflections which led to layups on the other end.”

With their defense leading the way, the Gaels controlled the fourth quarter, outscoring their opponent 20-4 to seal the victory. Senior Amanda Viteretti led the Gaels with 11 points and was named the game's MVP.

The Gaels also got a strong performance from senior Molly Brennan, who came in off the bench and scored four points to go along with her 10 rebounds.

“She comes of the bench, and she's not the quickest girl on the court, but she might be the smartest one out there,” said Morales. “As far as her movement on the defensive end, she creates a lot of havoc, rebounds, little deflections, she does that very well for us.”

In their other game of the week, a Wednesday match at Peekskill, the Gaels upended the previously unbeaten Red Devils, 39-27.

“We knew it was a big game for us, a big matchup, they're undefeated and we're going into their home,” said Morales. “They're a very good team, they have all their players back from last year, we knew that it was going to be a playoff type atmosphere.”

Despite some poor shooting early on, the Gaels led 17-9 at the half, and opened the second half by outscoring the Red Devils 9-1 in the third quarter.

“We started making some shots, but our shots came off of steals. We were sagging a little more, because they were struggling from the outside as well,” said Morales. “So we sagged our defense in a little bit tighter and forced them to shoot from outside. In doing that came some big-time deflections, which created fast breaks for us.”

Offensively, senior Allison Santini led the team, scoring 19 points to go along with a strong defensive game.

“She shot six-of-six in the fourth quarter, and came up with three big steals in that fourth quarter,” said Morales. “She was playing hurt, she stood and really gave us a spark on the defense. She probably had three or four key deflections in the crunch in the fourth quarter.”

Viteretti contributed nine points, most of which came during the fourth quarter.

“It was a big, big week for us and our direction,” the coach said. “Two big games, two big playoff type atmospheres and it can do nothing but benefit us. It's all about not becoming complacent and continuing to work. It's about out-working everybody… if we continue to out-work everybody and get better along the way, we should be happy with the end result.”

The Gaels’ next match is a home game against league opponent Dover on January 8 at 6 pm.