The Late Show Works for 10th-Ranked Rosary

Rosary’s Maggie Barnett had some advice for the ninth-ranked Irvine Vaqueros on Tuesday night.

Basically, chin up.

In a game critical to Barnett and Irvine for completely different reasons, it was Barnett who delivered a knockout punch.

Barnett outscored Irvine in the fourth quarter, 12-2, leading the 10th-ranked Royals to a 54-50 nonleague victory.

Barnett, an all-county player who had surgery last summer to remove cartilage from her left knee, missed the last two games with a sprained right ankle. Her shots haven’t fallen as they did a year ago.

That is, until the fourth quarter.

Barnett, five of 14 from the field in the first three quarters, made five of seven shots in the fourth, including a steal and layup that gave Rosary a 52-50 lead with 56 seconds left. She delivered the final blow with 15 seconds remaining when she made two free throws.

Barnett scored 25, and was complemented by Jennie Asensio’s 11 points. Rosary trailed in the final minute of the third quarter by nine.

“It’s the first day I’ve actually tried to do some of those old moves from last year,” Barnett said. “Maybe it’s starting to click.”

One thing Rosary (12-4) had that Irvine (14-2) lacked was big-game experience. The Royals, defending section champions, were playing their fifth game against a top-10 team from Orange County, Irvine its first. The credibility questions Irvine hoped to answer disappeared quickly with seven fourth-quarter turnovers and one-for-nine shooting.

“If you’re a top-10 team,” Rosary Coach Rich Yoon said, “you have to be mentally tough in the fourth quarter.”

Irvine Coach Dennis Hurley said before tipoff this was a statement game. The statement? “I think we’re there,” Hurley said afterward, “but we’re not over the hump. We have to get tougher. We can’t let one kid [Barnett] with a bad ankle break us down like that.

“We don’t need one kid to come in and save us. We’ve got work to do. We have to earn some respect.”