It is a situation Loyola is unfamiliar with.
The Lady Knights are unbeaten in league play and a win away from their second straight GISAL title. So leading nearly the entire game, watching their opponent take a late lead and needing a late basket with the clocking winding down isn’t something they face often.
“We haven’t had a game all year were someone has come back and taken the lead and we’ve had to answer,” Lady Knights coach David Palladino said. “I think they were a little surprised, but then they came up with the plays.”
Down a point to Dalton as the final seconds ticked away, Christina DiTolla attacked the middle. The defense collapsed and the junior guard saw a wide open Shannon McNamee for a layup along the left side with 3.7 second left to give Loyola the lead for good. Its 40-37 victory over the host Tigers in non-league girls basketball Friday was their first over an Ivy League team in six years. The two schools are less than a mile apart in Manhattan.
“I saw the opening,” said McNamee, who had four points. “I saw her driving. I guess it was a lucky shot that no one was there to defend it.”
Dalton (6-8) threw a deep pass away and after two Anna Marie Paolicelli free throws, saw Alexa Yurick’s full court heavy fall short. DiTolla lead Loyola (15-2) with 16 points, Andriana Ilnicki had nine and Grace Conrad five. Janelle Bradley dropped in 13 points, Isabel Feldman had 12 and Ada Dolan-Zalaznick added five for Dalton.
“I saw her out of the corner of my eye,” DiTolla said. “Just a lucky left-handed dish, just thank God I’m left-handed.”
She gave her team plenty more to be thankful for. Loyola opened up a 28-24 lead on her 3-pointer to start the fourth. She added a 3-point play to make it 31-27 with 5:20 left in the game after Dalton grabbed its first lead since the first quarter on a Bradley floater. Lost in the late heroics was the defensive play of Conrad on the 6-foot-2 Dolan-Zalaznick and her effort on the backboards.
“She controlled the game in a lot of ways,” Palladino said. … ”She is sort of the unsung hero of the whole thing.”
On the other side, Bradley was clutch down the stretch for the Tigers. She connected from behind the arch with 2:27 left to give her squad a one-point lead with 2:27 remaining. Bradley converted a lefty layup and fed Feldman, who was fouled and made one of two free throws to give Dalton a 37-36 advantage with 37.8 second left. Yurick would grab the ensuing rebound, but Feldman missed the front end to give Loyola a chance.
“I was a little more pumped in the second half because we were playing better as a team,” Bradley. “Once I start making shots I kind of feel it and I keep going”
The problem for Dalton, which is rebuilding after the loss of star guards Bonnie Cecil and Stephanie Lechich, was that shots were not falling early. The Tigers couldn’t convert turnovers into baskets or knock down the open looks they were getting. Dolan-Zalaznick was plagued with second-half foul trouble and coach Doug Feinberg felt they were more effect with a smaller unit.
“We got good looks,” said Feinberg, whose team will play seven league games over the next week and a half. “Every look was a good look. We just could put it in the basket.”
McNamee made sure not to miss the game’s most important shot. The win gives the Lady Knights a boost of confidence as they finish out their season and look to wrap up another title.
“I personally always wanted to beat Dalton,” DiTolla said. “It’s just a big game.”
