Dudley knew that level of play won’t get them far in Sunday’s state championship. Her head kept shaking until she got to the back of the handshake line and readied herself to congratulate the Lions on a good game.
“You can win a game and still feel really bad about how you played,” she said. “That’s my feeling today. We didn’t play up to our standard. Some of that is our youth, but also Carroll also played a scrappy game and did a lot of good things. All credit to them, but we just can’t play that way.”
It’s true that Sunday’s championship will be a tougher test, as the No. 1 Quakers, fresh off winning the Independent School League, will face No. 2 St. John’s, this year’s Washington Catholic Athletic Conference champions.
They will play on Sunday at 6 p.m. at George Washington. The game will be a rematch of last year’s DCSAA final, which Sidwell won by 19 points.
Playing the first game of a co-ed quadruple-header, the Quakers and Lions started very slow, the game deadlocked at 6-6 a few minutes into the second quarter. Both offenses picked up in the final few minutes before the half, and Sidwell led 24-13 at the break.
But the Quakers (25-5) never found an offensive rhythm in the second half, in large part because of an aggressive Lions defense. Carroll’s efforts on the defensive end gave it ample opportunities to chip away at the Quakers’ lead, and the Lions (20-10) cut the deficit to three points with under a minute left. But Quakers senior Kendall Dudley, a steady hand in a shaky game, sunk a late free throw to put the game out of reach.
Freshman guard Jayda Dixon led Sidwell with 14 points, Dudley added 10 and sophomore guard Ava Yoon chipped in nine.
“It was definitely a different dynamic today, and our team was caught off guard,” Yoon said. “But in the end we pushed through, and we can only really learn from this. We want things to go differently on Sunday.”
In the second girls’ semifinal, the St. John’s offense also started slow before pulling away to win, 48-24. The Cadets, playing four days after earning their third straight WCAC title, led Maret 10-4. But St. John’s, the No. 2 seed in this bracket, came alive in the second quarter. The Cadets attacked the rim time and again, muscling the Frogs around the basket. But it was the Cadets’ defense that created a blowout, as St. John’s held its opponent to single-digit points in three of the four quarters.
“Practice makes defensive perfection, and I feel like our practices lately have been really high-energy and defensive,” senior forward Carolae Barton said.
Sophomore guard Morgan Stewart scored a team-high 18 points, while Barton added six points and nine rebounds.
“If we stay to our principles and do what we need to do defensively, we can be in any game,” Barton said. “We’re just excited to get another game to play together.”