The Batavia girls basketball team made some great strides this season under coach Bill Wade, who came out of retirement to take over the squad.
But an off shooting night against a tough No. 13 Aquinas team means that season came to an end Thursday night, with a sloppy 49-41 loss on No. 8 Batavia's home court in the second round of the Section 5 Class A playoffs.
"(Aquinas) is a very good team," Batavia coach Bill Wade said. "I saw that when I scouted them a week and a half ago. This is a tough team in the second round. I thought we could have won but we didn't make our baskets when we needed to."
The Blue Devils have been able to have players pick up their games when other's were off, but there were a bunch of stretches Thursday that it didn't happen - where nobody could hit a shot.
It was probably Batavia's most poor shooting effort as a team all season long.
"We had our looks, we had our chances and we had our opportunities," Wade said.
Neither squad came to play in the first quarter.
Marieli Ramirez scored five straight points to put the Lil' Irish up 7-3, but Brittany Wormley scored with three minutes left to make the score 7-5 Aquinas. Nobody else scored in the period.
Michelle Jordan scored a basket and had a 3-pointer early in the second quarter for Batavia, but Aquinas went on a 9-0 run to take a 19-11 lead. Kelly Legg scored three consecutive baskets in the run.
Wormley killed the Irish scoring with five straight points, but Aquinas had a 26-17 lead at halftime.
Shun-Della Williams had a big third quarter for the Blue Devils. Her rebounding was huge in the frame and she had both she and Wormley had four points apiece to cut the deficit to 32-29 after three periods of play.
"I thought she really stepped up and got us going in the third quarter," Wade said. "We could have folded and didn't."
Carly Cellura drained a pair of 3-pointers to put Aquinas up 42-34 midway through the fourth quarter, but the Blue Devils didn't quit. Wormley had a basket with 1 1/2 minute left and trailed by just four points.
But on Aquinas' next trip down the floor was the nail in the coffin. Legg - a 6-foot-1 forward - pulled up and hit a 3-pointer.
That gives the Irish (8-12) a shot to play top-seeded Pittsford Mendon in the semifinals.
Wormley scored 15 points to lead Batavia, which ends up 15-7. Only two players -Brittany Mazurkiewicz and Jaycee Shirk - are graduating, so the Blue Devils could be strong again next season.
Shirk had five points and Mazurkiewicz had seven in their final high school game.
"We will get together on Monday and have a meeting, talk about how we are going to work for next year," Wade said. "But Brittany and Jaycee were great leaders and whoever our captains are next year I can only hope will fill their shoes half way. They were great."
