Elyria Catholic vs. Rocky River girls basketball: Panthers strengthen lead in GLC West with victory

Imagine how well Elyria Catholic girls basketball coach Eric Rothgery must sleep at night knowing that he has Isabelle Niederst as his point guard.

“Isabelle is always going to step up and make big plays when you’ve got to make big plays,” Rothgery said.

As a four-year starter, the Tiffin signee has experienced just about everything that can happen on a basketball court. She uses that experience to help the young, undersized Panthers win basketball games, and possibly conference championships.

On Jan. 13 at Rocky River, Niederst scored a game-high 29 points and swished a pair of free throws with 10.2 seconds left in the game to help Elyria Catholic take a 53-52 decision, and with it a firm grasp on the West Division of the Great Lakes Conference. EC is now 10-4 and unbeaten in GLC play, while 6-6 Rocky River and Westlake each have two conference losses.

Niederst attempted six free throws in the game’s final minute, and she only made three, splitting a pair with 38.3 seconds left and missing both with 59 seconds to go. Free throws have been a challenge for the Panthers this season, and it appeared the small but vocal Rocky River student section got into their heads. But Niederst was calm, cool and collected on the final two shots.

“Just take a deep breath and try to clear it all out,” she said. “I feel (the misses were) more the nerves of the game. I can block out the people, it was just me being anxious. Especially after missing a few. But I know the next ones are going in.”

The first half was a game of runs, as each team took its turn. River used a 12-0 run that straddled the first and second quarters to take a 20-7 lead, but the Panthers answered with a 12-0 run of their own.

The first half also could be referred to as the Isabelle and Ava show, as Niederst and Rocky River senior Ava Patti dominated play. Niederst scored her team’s first 16 points and had 18 at the intermission. Patti scored her team’s final eight points of the half to give the Pirates a 28-21 lead into the locker room and also ended the half with 18.

“That was crazy,” Rothgery said. “At one point in the first half I said, ‘Does Isabelle have all of our points?’”

The Pirates led for most of the game, with the biggest margin being 13 points. After taking a 2-0 lead to open the game, the Panthers didn’t lead again until the middle of the fourth quarter, when Camara Ogletree, who backed Niederst with 12 points, scored a layup on a feed from Elaiah Fisher to put EC on top, 44-42.

“There was definitely a little panic for all of us,” Niederst said of being behind by 13 points. “But we just had to keep our composure. We knew the first half wasn’t our greatest basketball, so we just had to put that behind us. If we wanted to win this game, we had to forget about that and just pick each other up and know that if we were going to win this game, we had to do it together.”

While it might appear that Rocky River fell apart and couldn’t keep its hold on a double-digit lead, that really wasn’t the case.

“I don’t think we got comfortable,” said coach Jamey Pfahl. “They’re just a good team. We’ve watched other games of theirs where they came back and won. We knew we were going to get a full 32 minutes. We knew it was going to be like a title fight. They just made one more play than us.”

While Niederst was almost the entire show in the first half, her teammates started to pick things up late in the game, helping to secure the victory. Mya Rivera made two key 3-pointers in the game’s final 6 minutes, and Ogletree scored half of her points in the fourth quarter. And while Niederst only had one field goal in the final quarter, she was able to find open teammates and had three assists.

“It was nice,” Rothgery said. “Mya hit a couple big threes, Lexi (Rodriguez) was working hard on rebounding, and she got a couple blocks and deflections. I think everybody gave a little bit. Everybody had a piece of that game. We’ll take it.”

EC built the lead up to five, 50-45, with just under a minute to play. But Patti scored on a layup and then Claudia Roche made a steal and fed Patti, who was fouled when hitting another layup. The three-point play tied the score at 50-50 with 44.2 seconds to play.

“She’s just incredible,” Pfahl said of Patti. “Talk about playing a full 32 minutes. She just goes non-stop. She coaches up her teammates. It’s why I love coaching her.”

Niederst split two free throws with 38.3 seconds to go, and then things got crazy. After a timeout, Patti missed a driving layup, but freshman Elizabeth Lang, who finished with 10 points, got the offensive rebound. However, the ball was stripped out of her hands, leading to a tied-ball situation that went to Elyria Catholic. Niederst then made her two free throws, making Lang’s short jumper with 5 seconds to play meaningless.

THE SCORE

Elyria Catholic 53, Rocky River 52