Suffocating 'D'

Rosary's Jordan Rettig goes up for a shot during the Royals' 57-28 victory over IMSA in the season opener for both teams Monday night.
Donnell Collins / Special to the Beacon News

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AURORA -- After three quarters of Rosary's season-opening game against IMSA, Royals coach Dave Beebe challenged his players.

"If they (the Titans) get to 18 points, you're going to be doing twice as much running tomorrow," said Beebe, when Rosary was leading 47-14.

IMSA made sure the Royals will get their conditioning in today. The Titans played hard for 32 minutes, but Rosary had Jordan Rettig and its full-court pressure defense. The result was a 57-28 rout in the Royals' gym, during which 11 Rosary players scored.

Rosary forced 47 Titans turnovers, with 16 coming in the first quarter when the Royals applied a suffocating press. IMSA was caught repeatedly by traps in the corners, resulting mostly in takeaways.

Still, after the game, Beebe stressed the need for improvement on defense.

"The defensive communication wasn't very good," said Beebe. "Most of our players were on the team last year, so we should be able to play together better than we did today. We'll iron these things out."

On the offensive end, Rettig showed early on that nobody could contend with her in the paint. The 6-foot junior, a three-year starter, had 11 rebounds (seven offensive) in the 10 minutes she played in the first half.

By the time Rettig grabbed a seat on the bench after three quarters, she had accumulated 16 points and 17 rebounds.

"It was good that we got everybody involved," said Rettig, after watching all of her teammates get action. "This year, I'm just trying to be a leader this year and help make everybody better."

IMSA ran its offense but could not create many high-percentage shots. By the middle of the third quarter, the score was 51-11 and the Titans only had three field goals.

"We only started with these girls two weeks ago, since we don't have them over the summer," said IMSA coach Keith McIntosh. "We need to get our conditioning up to play a team like Rosary. I did think that our sophomores played pretty well."

Hustling junior point guard Isolina Rossi led IMSA with 11 points and a bunch of floor burns.

For Rosary, guard Stephanie Haugen chipped in with 10 points, and Audrey Van Acker had seven points.