Girls Basketball: Marian Catholic falls to Trinity

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Marian Catholic's Amber Williams grabs a loose ball in front of Trinity's Mikayla Leyden. | Buzz Orr~Sun-Times Media

Updated: February 26, 2012 8:10AM

Alyssa Dengler is known to everyone as “Mouse,” a nickname one of her youth coaches gave her years ago because she was so small and fast.

The Mouse roared Tuesday night. Dengler, a 6-foot-1 forward, drained two decisive three-pointers in the third quarter to lift host Trinity to a 45-39 Sweet 16 Tournament victory over No. 5 Marian Catholic in River Forest.

Marian (15-9) had rallied from an 11-point, second-quarter deficit to tie the game at 26 on a backdoor layup by Brianna Morrison with 1:43 left in the third quarter. On the following possession, the host Blazers worked the ball around and Dengler swished a three from the right wing.

Megan Walsh answered with a jumper for Marian and then had a chance to give the Spartans the lead, but Walsh missed under pressure and Dengler canned another three in transition from the left wing. Dengler, who hadn’t scored and had attempted only two shots up until that point, finished with eight points.

“We were getting on her because she wasn’t shooting,” Trinity coach Eddie Stritzel said. “(Those were) just two huge shots for us and I thought that was the game. I thought once we got those points we got control of the game.”

The Blazers (20-1) increased the lead to 41-30 as Dengler opened the fourth quarter with a layup and Megan Podkowa, who tallied a game-high 21 points and had six rebounds, followed by scoring her team’s next seven points, including her second trey.

The visitors weren’t hitting much of anything in the first half, shooting just 6-for-26 from the floor despite getting a lot of decent medium-range looks and outrebounding Trinity 19-9.

“I just don’t think we played the way we can play tonight, so it was a little frustrating” Marian Catholic coach Annie Byrne said. “I don’t think the kids did a bad job on the defensive end, but on the offensive end we were in a little bit of a panic. We missed a lot of shots.”

The Spartans fought back to within 43-39 on a rebound bucket by Dajhae Mullins with seven seconds left. But guard Lauren Prochaska iced the game two seconds later by making both ends of a 1-and-1.

Teniya Page led Marian with 10 points, while Alanna Ferry had seven points and five boards and Mullins and Ashton Millender each had five points.