IAAM A Conference Championship- St. Frances Takes Another One

The annual IAAM Championship day was on a Saturday this year which happened to fall on Valentine's Day. We had two sets of Panthers battling it out at Howard Community College as the defending champion St. Frances Academy took on the Panthers of Pallotti High School. The teams split their meetings during the regular season so the game was highly anticipated.   The first quarter saw St. Frances jump out to a 9-5 lead with freshman [player_tooltip player_id='1263650' first='Khloe' last='Ison'] doing some early damage with a three and a layup. Pallotti bounced back with a nice run behind some dominant post play from senior [player_tooltip player_id='433800' first='Arianna' last='Harris-Mott'] who finished with six points in the quarter. Pallotti took complete control in the second quarter with good ball movement and wide open shooters knocking down shots. They took at 27-18 lead into the halftime break.   The third quarter was completely different ball game as St. Frances came out on a mission. Senior Chloe Mils and freshman Ison went into attack mode on defense and took over the game. They forced a bunch of turnovers and quickly converted them into points. St. Frances completely shut down Pallotti's offense in the quarter and took a 33-30 lead into the fourth. Pallotti only managed to put 3 foul shots on the board in the quarter. The fourth quarter was more of the same with Pallotti's guards not being able to get comfortable. St. Frances got a boost off the bench from [player_tooltip player_id='433860' first='Jacara' last='Spencer'] in the fourth who dropped a quick six points to help them secure another IAAM A conference title. The final score was 53-44.    The super freshman came up big in her first championship game, leading all scorers with 22 points. She showed off her range while knocking down a couple of threes and got to the basket quite a bit. She was able to draw fouls when she couldn't finish and racked up some points at the line. She showed off her competitive spirit on defense and completely turned the game around in the second half.       Dahni battled in the paint all game with Pallotti's big front line and more than held her own. She finished the game with 10 points and 10 rebounds and a couple of blocks. She kept her composure and stayed out of foul trouble for the most part. She understood the assignment and came through in the clutch.     This was not the best shooting performance from the senior guard but she managed to post 11 points and made some big free throws in crunch time. She helped will the team to victory even when things weren't going great early on.     Savannah went down swinging in this one. She played physical in the paint and gave her team a chance. She finished with 13 points and showed off her range with a couple of three-pointers.     Arianna was arguably the best player on the court and finished with a stat line of 15 points, 11 rebounds and 4 emphatic blocks. She drew double teams constantly which freed up her teammates for open looks. She will excel at Virginia Tech.

The annual IAAM Championship day was on a Saturday this year which happened to fall on Valentine's Day. We had two sets of Panthers battling it out at Howard Community College as the defending champion St. Frances Academy took on the Panthers of Pallotti High School. The teams split their meetings during the regular season so the game was highly anticipated.