However it ends for Danielle Rauch and the Bishop Ludden girls basketball team this season, it sure wasn’t going to conclude with Rauch as a spectator.
That was what the Gaelic Knights faced late in the first half of Saturday night’s Section III Class B final against South Jefferson at the Carrier Dome – a crisis that Rauch turned into yet another opportunity to display her wide array of skills and unmatched mental toughness.
Saddled with three early fouls, Rauch returned to the fray in the second half and proceeded to take over, notching 15 of her 19 points after intermission and rallying Ludden past the Spartans 51-39.
That makes it back-to-back sectional titles for the Gaelic Knights, and two straight years where it ousted South Jefferson. Only here, it didn’t require the kind of last-second drama needed to beat the Spartans a year ago in the sectional semifinals.
In fact, there was enough ups and downs in the first half to cover an entire season, more than making up for the frustration both sides faced waiting an extra 24 hours to get underway following Friday’s snow postponement.
Ludden scored the game’s first 10 points, only toh ave South Jefferson countered with its own 12-0 run. Still trailing, the Gaelic Knights got a boost when Karleigh Leo hit a half-court shot at the first-quarter horn, putting her team back in front 14-12.
The Spartans went right after Rauch, and with 6:26 left in the second quarter the Michigan-bound senior did get her third foul. She sat the rest of the half and watched South Jefferson move back in front.
Trailing by as much as five, it took the inside play of Aurora Deshaies and Amarah Streiff (playing through an ankle injury suffered early in the game) to keep the Spartans in sight, Ludden trailing 26-23 at the break.
But then the third quarter got underway, and Rauch was back on the floor. If South Jefferson expected her to play tentative to avoid further foul trouble, it soon found out otherwise.
It took just three minutes for Rauch to torch the Spartans for 10 straight points, all of which put Ludden ahead for good. Her effort sparked the rest of the Gaelic Knights, especially on defense, where it hounded South Jefferson on every inch of the court and only allowed a handful of field goals the rest of the way.
Deshaies finished with 14 points and Streiff got seven points as Leo gained nine points. For the Spartans, Alyssa Stevenson had 11 points, just ahead of Mara Hathaway (nine points) and Jenna Zimmerman (seven points).
Next Sunday at 1 p.m., Ludden travels to Binghamton’s Floyd L. Maines Arena to take on Section IV champion Susquehanna Valley (no. 2 in the latest state Class B rankings) in the Class B regional final. The winner advances to the March 16-17 state final four at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy.
