COVENTRY — The sore shooting hand of Coventry’s Elise Fortier became lethal in the second half against St. Raphael Academy.
  

After missing last Thursday’s opener against Chariho because of an injured right hand, Fortier fought through the immense pain her hand was giving her and came up strong on the offensive end right when the Oakers needed her to in a 61-47 win over the Saints last night.

With her hand tightly wrapped in tape, Fortier commanded the offense in the second half, scoring 20 of her game-high 28 points in the final 16 minutes to turn what was a close score at the break into a somewhat comfortable win for the Oakers.

Along with attacking the lane on a couple of fast breaks, Fortier proved to be just as ice at the free-throw line as the actual ice that was wrapped around her hand after the game. She made seven out of her last eight shots from the line, holding off a last-ditch rally by St. Raphael.

“My hand is killing me,” Fortier said in describing the pain afterwards. “I think it was from all of the free throws that I shot tonight. But, I love the pressure. Really, when you’re in the game, you really don’t feel it as much. But, you feel it afterwards. It was all about winning at first, and then it becomes ‘ugh, I got to go ice my hand.’”

“She was a calming influence, offensively,” Coventry head coach Chris Luppe added about Fortier. “She came up for us and knocked down a few key free throws in the end.”

Although pleased with getting off on the right foot in Division I play, the offensive penetration was a bit suspect for much of the evening for Coventry. The times that the Oakers were working the ball in the half-court setup, they were mishandling the dribble towards the interior, causing the team to commit a number of traveling violations.

Defensively, Coventry struggled in boxing out on the weak side, allowing St. Raphael to come in for second, third and fourth opportunities at the basket, as well as getting in foul trouble very early in each half. Fortunately for the Oakers, the Saints had their own troubles of finishing the cleanups on the inside, missing a number of easy shots from close range – including four-straight attempts on one possession early in the second half – and St. Raphael struggled shooting foul shots, going just 15-of-27 from the free-throw line.

“We’ve got to stop fouling so much,” Luppe said. “Our weak-side rebounding has got to get better. We’ve got to deny penetration, as well. Offensively, we have to stay within the realm of the offense. There were too many times that we would try to break away and we would cause problems ourselves. Our offense a lot of times would feed off of our defense but it wasn’t the case sometimes tonight.”
Amidst the mistakes on the offense, Coventry did do an excellent job against the full-court pressure St. Raphael was applying, getting the quick pass up the floor for a few 2-on-1 breaks, mainly in the first half with Tiffany Webster finishing off the play with easy lay-ups. Webster scored 12 of her 14 points in the opening half, with six of them coming on fast breaks.

The one plus side for Coventry’s defense was the strong guard play of both Fortier and Hannah Cole, applying strong pressure along the perimeter to cut off the Saints’ passing lanes and cause a number of steals, some of which turned into fast-break opportunities.

“That’s the one thing that I was really excited to get back to,” Fortier said. “I love playing defense with Hannah, especially. We’d get a lot of steals. It’s just fun because I always hear talking and I know where people are and it’s just a lot easier to play defense with someone else who knows what they’re doing.”

Coventry had a 22-14 lead with just under four minutes to go in the first half before St. Raphael went on a 12-4 run to close the gap to within a bucket at the buzzer, 28-26. Sharae Hall, who would lead the Saints in scoring with 14 points, got the rally started when she hit a 3-pointer that initially bounced high off of the rim before falling through. Then, Danisha Johnson hit a couple of lay-ups, including one at the buzzer to pull St. Raphael within two.

But, the Oakers regained their earlier form of applying defensive pressure along the perimeter and beating the press up the floor on fast breaks, going on a 13-3 run through the first 8:49 of the second half to pull away.

“We were slow today,” St. Raphael head coach Frederick Lashley-Saunders said. “A little tired. I’m not making any excuses. Coventry really played us well. They did a good job in the zone. We couldn’t hit shots. We couldn’t hit free throws. We couldn’t run the floor. It wasn’t a very good performance by us tonight.”

In her final regular-season game against her home town, Christina Hopper scored 10 points for St. Raphael in the loss.

Coventry 61, St. Raphael 47

ST. RAPHAEL (47): Hall 4-5-6, 14 Hopper 3-4-12, 10 Signore 2-0-0, 6 Millar 2-1-2, 6 Johnson 2-0-0, 4 Stuttard 1-1-3, 3 Hodge 0-2-4, 2 M. Malloy 0-2-2, 2 Totals: 14-15-27, 47.

COVENTRY (61): Fortier 7-10-16, 28 Webster 5-4-5, 14 Cole 1-6-8, 8 Willard 2-2-2, 6 Lesnett 1-2-2, 4 Totals: 16-24-33, 61.

3-pointers: S – Signore (2), Millar, Hall. C – Fortier (2).

Halftime: 28-26 Coventry.