Elisabeth Gully (r.) wrestles a rebound away from Molloy’s Angela Contorno. (An Rong XU)
A loss just wasn’t a reality Karin Robinson was considering.
The Mary Louis guard had the look in her eyes that a special player possesses and a swagger in her game from almost start to finish. There were bullet passes from half court to open teammates, coast to coast drives after rebounds, steals and her signature second effort putbacks in traffic.
“I refused to lose,” the George Mason-bound guard said.
That’s exactly what Robinson stressed to her team after falling behind by 10 points in the first half. She sparked a lightning-quick comeback and added confidence that set up the Hilltoppers making all the plays in the final minutes to pull out a 59-54 win over visiting Archbishop Molloy in CHSAA Brooklyn/Queens Division I girls basketball Friday night.
“I was trying to get her to bring the rest of the kids up to the level she was playing at,” TMLA coach Kevin White said. “She played very, very hard and put the team on her back and carried it for a little bit.”
Robinson scored 12 of her 27 points in the fourth and pulled down 12 rebounds. While she was great late, she also helped guide the Hilltoppers through a first half that saw Reana Mohamed, who scored 10 points, saddled with foul trouble and the Stanners clicking around point guard Amani Tatum. Jasmine Nwajei also had 10 points, Kristen Podlovits had six and Elisabeth Gully grabbed seven rebounds to help TMLA control the boards after halftime.
“In the second half we saw that they really came to play,” Robinson said. “We just had to step it up with the rebounding, the scoring. We had to get defensive stops.”
One of those stops led to putting the Hilltoppers (9-1, 3-1), ranked No. 4 in the city by The Post, up for good. Tatum, who scored 18 points, but just four in the second half, stripped Mohamed along the baseline, but missed a tough layup down the other end. Robinson corralled the rebound and raced up the court and put jumper in the lane off the glass and in to give Mary Louis a 53-51 lead with 41.8 seconds left in the game.
Carolyn Gallagher, who had 12 points, made one of two free throws for No. 9 Molloy (5-4, 2-2) and fouled Mohamed out with 22.3 seconds remaining. Robinson then missed the second of a 1-and-1, but Podlovits grabbed a huge offensive rebound.
It led to Robinson fouling Tatum out on the next play and giving TMLA a 56-52 advantage with 17.3 left. Molloy would have one final chance down three with the ball, but Julia O’Connor blocked Alex (Weasel) Dietrich’s drive through the middle with two seconds left to seal the win. The Stanners shot just 14-of-29 from the free throw line.
“Karin told us to get it together and that’s what we did,” Podlovits said. “And we pulled it off.”
Molloy had a possible upset brewing as it ended the second quarter on a 6-0 run to take a 39-29 lead into the half. It had White wanting his team to clamp down on defense.
The Hilltoppers, who visit Christ the King Saturday afternoon, opened the third quarter on a furious 13-3 run that that pulled them even at 42-42 on jumper from Nwajei from the right corner with 3:27 left in the period. They were down just two heading into the fourth and then opened with a 5-0 run starting with a Podlovits 3-pointer that spun around the rim multiple times before going in.
After that, Robinson wasn’t going to let her team’s comeback go to waste.
“She knew that she had to carry the team,” Podlovits said. “She’s our main player. When she plays good, she has to get all of us to play good. That’s what she did tonight.”