The Holy Cross girls’ basketball team was missing a huge piece of its puzzle when it took on St. Paul in Thursday night’s NVL tournament final at Kennedy High School.
Crusader senior Mya Zaccagnini was in sweats, and not the starting lineup, due to an ankle injury she sustained in the fourth quarter of Monday’s semifinal win over Wolcott.
Holy Cross put in a valiant effort and gave itself a chance to win with a tie game and just over a minute left in the fourth quarter. St. Paul made the plays necessary to win down the stretch and claimed a 51-47 victory over Holy Cross in a championship game thriller in the Jack Taglia Gymnasium.
Falcon junior Audrey Tice poured in a game-high 19 points, but it was the tournament MVP’s passing that made the biggest difference. Tice twice found senior tri-captain Rebecca Kelly (16 points, 13 rebounds) open for layups, the second of which gave St. Paul a 49-47 lead with 1:04 to play. Haileigh Orzel, another of the senior tri-captains, and Kelly each made a free throw to help finally put away Holy Cross. Tice, Kelly and junior Olivia Dahn were named to the all-tournament team.
The Crusaders were led by six-foot freshman Corinne Lomax’s 17 points. Sophomore Shania Howard added 12 points and junior Isabella Oliver tallied 10. Lomax and Howard made the all-tournament team.
Tice came out on fire in the first quarter as St. Paul amassed an 11-2 lead. Holy Cross got back to within 14-6 by the end of the opening quarter. The Crusaders caught up to the Falcons in the second quarter and took a late lead, 25-23, on a Howard drive. Zola Cudjoe beat the halftime buzzer with a bank shot to send the teams to their locker rooms tied at 25.
The game remained tied through three quarters, 38-38, which set up a back-and-forth final eight minutes. Neither team led by more than three points in the fourth quarter until Kelly’s free throw with 3.3 seconds left gave the Falcons their margin of victory.
St. Paul won the NVL title for the first time since 2019, when it beat Holy Cross to capture the trophy. All three NVL titles for the Falcons have come against the Crusaders.
Next up for both teams is the state tournament, which begins next week.
