Intensity, confidence key for Lady Cardinals

SHINER — The Lady Cardinals’ win Tuesday was just business as usual, even going against a rival such as Hallettsville Sacred Heart as they took down the Indianettes 41-24.

“Any win is a good win,” head coach Dana Beal-Sestak said of the win.

Defense was the story of the night for Shiner St. Paul. Coming off a tough tournament over the weekend, Beal-Sestak believed her team needed to pick up their intensity moving forward.

“We played some tough competition this weekend and our intensity was not where it needed to be,” she said. “We watched film and we saw how we were not working as hard as we could and should and will work. By doing that we really focused and that was our goal tonight, to have maximum effort for as long as we could and have somebody come in for you and take a break and then our subs came in and did a really nice job.”

Their intensity showed early on as Shiner St. Paul came away with a total of 17 steals that game. Gracey Novosad led the way with five steals while Parker Clay had four.

“It’s what we’ve been working on, being more aggressive, being more confident, knowing where the ball is, knowing where your teammates are,” Beal-Sestak explained. “That gives us a little bit more opportunity to be more aggressive, trusting that our teammates are going to be where they’re supposed to be within our system.”

The Lady Cardinals dominated from the jump, starting out the game with a 12-2 run to end the first quarter. The second quarter saw more of the same as St. Paul outscored their rivals 10-5 in the second to go up 15 points. Their largest lead of the night came midway through the third as Emma Morgan hit a shot to put the Lady Cardinals up 32-10. She led the team in scoring with 14 points, adding one assist and nine rebounds to the stat sheet.

Six players came away with points while seven registered steals, a stat that shows production didn’t come from just one or two players.

“Our goal is to really work as a unit,” Beal-Sestak explained, “not a starting five and the second five. We don’t want there to be any drop off from one group to the other, so we’ve been working and talking about that.”

Grace Irvin finished the night with six points, one assist, eight rebounds, two steals and one block. Clay had eight points, six rebounds, four steals and a block.

“I think as a team overall we did a much better job of everybody stepping up and doing their job so that we can have a little bit more confidence moving forward,” Beal-Sestak said.

The Lady Cardinals are on a bye today but then open district with a game at home on Tuesday against Victoria Faith Academy. Tipoff is scheduled at 6 p.m.