GIRLS

CTK48

R.B. Catholic47

Christ the King felt like the enemy.

“Everyone thought we were going to lose,” said Clare Droesch. “They all wanted to see that. I think that really pumped us up.”

With a team as good as CTK, that’s never a good thing. The Royals withstood a tough challenge yesterday, holding off Red Bank Catholic, 48-47, in front of 1,800 at the Asbury Park Convention Hall.

“They were confident they were going to beat us,” said Droesch, who led CTK (14-1) with 19 points, nine rebounds and six assists. “But that just got us more excited. I knew we weren’t losing this game.”

The defending New York State champions needed two free throws from Christine Catalanotto with nine seconds left to take a 48-44 lead. RBC’s Lindsay Woodfield drilled a long three-pointer with two seconds on the clock, but the Royals didn’t have to take the ball out again. RBC- the New Jersey champs- fell to 10-1 and had its 42-game winning streak come to an end.

“We knew they were going to double or triple-team me on that play,” said the Boston College-bound Droesch. “So if I couldn’t get the ball, we definitely wanted the ball in Christine’s hands.”

Which may have seemed strange, since Catalanotto admitted that she wasn’t used to having that kind of pressure on her.

“I’ve never been in that kind of situation before,” said Catalanotto, whose second free throw rattled in after bouncing around the rim. “I knew I had to hit both of them. It was hard to put the crowd out of my mind, but I had to do it. We had to prove the crowd that we could do it.”

They did. Since CTK was never able to pull away from Red Bank, she had to hit those shots, despite opening a 10-point lead early in the second quarter. And although the score was close, the outcome suited Droesch just fine.

“It could have been a one-point game or a 15-point game, it doesn’t matter,” Droesch said. “This was a really good win. But we’re definitely going to hear about it from people that we didn’t win by enough.”

CTK certainly has nothing to apologize for. RBC was led by 6-foot-1 Jessica DePalo and 6-foot-2 Brooke Tomovich. Tomovich scored only four points, but made her presence felt defensively, while DePalo scored 16 and grabbed 8 rebounds.

“We did a pretty good job on them,” said CTK head coach Bob Mackey. “We weren’t going to let them beat us and they didn’t.”

That’s largely because of Droesch’s brilliance. She missed five of her first six shots, but got the Royals going with 11 first quarter points. Most impressively, however, was her deft passing that set up numerous easy baskets for her teammates. She would have had several more assists if her teammates hadn’t dropped passes and missed layups.

“Clare would rather pass than score,” Mackey said. “She always does what we need her to do.”

That includes getting a chip on her shoulder when she feels the team is being slighted.

“We should be confident after winning this game, because they were sure confident that they were going to win,” Droesch said. “But we won again, like we do when the cards seem to be stacked against us.”

And it wasn’t just Droesch who felt like the Rodney Dangerfield of girls’ basketball.

“Maybe no one else knew it, but we were sure we were the No. 1 team,” Catalonatto said. “We didn’t want anyone to take our place.”

For another day, no one did.