Rylee Robinson’s three sends Indians to semis

A right wing three from Rylee Robinson served as the game-winner as St Vincent downed Kelly 52-49 to advance to the semifinals on the FSCB Holiday Classic.

“The idea was to drive and look for the bucket or kick it and (Robinson) was open,” Indians coach Ryan Prost said. “She’s good at knocking those shots down and she got a big win for us.”

Robinson finished the game with 26 points on 5 threes, practically carrying the Indians offense.

From the opening tip, the Indians pushed the Hawks back on their heels with a dominant full-court press that gave the Indians an 11-2 run to start the game.

“We talked about coming out with a chip on our shoulders,” Prost said. “We’re missing some people so we wanted to come out and show that we can still be aggressive and play hard.”

Even as Kelly started to withstand the Indians' pressure, they couldn’t get shots to fall which kept them in a hole as they trailed 16-7 after the first quarter.

Whatever was said in between quarters seemed to light a spark under the Hawks as they went to work on both ends, winning the quarter 16-13 to make it 29-23 St. Vincent at halftime.

The half was capped off by a half court buzzer-beating three from Kelly’s Jada Griggs to give her team momentum heading into the locker room at halftime.

“I just told them it was bad luck (for us),” Prost said. “It was a great shot. I felt like we played a great half so we were pretty upbeat going into the locker room.”

The halftime break served as a reset for the Indians as they began the third quarter getting back to the full-court press that was so dominant in the first half.

The pressure once again caused the Hawks problems and St. Vincent expanded its lead back to 10 early in the third quarter.

With momentum mounting for the Indians, Kelly got a spark as the Hawks went on a 13-0 run to close the third quarter leading 37-34.

Kelly’s 13-0 run carried into the fourth quarter as the run reached 18-0 before finally being snapped.

“We just needed someone to step up and make a shot,” Prost said. “Cailyn Prost stepped up and took the ball to the basket and finally broke the rut and then we got back in the swing of things.”

With Kelly leading by 5 with less than 30 seconds left, St. Vincent got a huge corner three from Abigail Schilling and then after forcing a five-second violation, Rylee Robinson drilled an eventual game-winning three to steal the win for the Indians.

Following Robinson's big outing in the win was Haley Emmendorfer with 13 points and Abigail Schilling with 6 points.

Kelly was led by Jada Griggs who also had 26 points in the loss.

Also contributing for the Hawks was Kayleigh Holman with 12 points.

Kelly (6-2) will return to action in the First State Community Bank Holiday Classic against Cape Central at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 20, at the Show Me Center.

St. Vincent (5-3) advances to the semifinals where the Indians will battle Delta at 7 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 18. at the Show Me Center.

“I told them to go home and go straight to bed,” Prost laughed. “We’re going to have to come out and take care of the ball.”