City of Basketball Love

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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HAWK HILL — St. Joe’s opponents know what’s on the menu when they face the Hawks: A Talya Brugler and Laura Ziegler combo.

It was on special again Monday afternoon at Hagan Arena. The frontcourt duo combined for 42 points and 21 rebounds as the Hawks ran away from La Salle, 64-39, to capture their first outright Big 5 title since 2013-14.

“I think as coach said, it was one of our goals in the beginning of the year,” Ziegler said. “We wanted the Big 5 championship. Just getting here, and we’ve been waiting for this since the beginning of December when we played Nova and won. We wanted to be Big champs.”

Brugler, a 6-foot-1 junior forward, matched a season-high with 26 points on 11-of-12 shooting and added five boards and a pair of assists. Ziegler, a 6-foot-2 sophomore forward, put together a 16-point, 16-rebound, six-assist effort on an efficient 7-of-11 shooting, matching her career highs in rebounds and assists. 

They combined for 15 points in the fourth quarter as the Hawks outscored the Explorers 21-7 in the final 10 minutes.

“I just try to get to the open area where my teammates can find me, opening them up for drives and most of the time it just ends up with them kicking it because my girl is helping off of them,” said Brugler, who ranked in the Top 50 nationally in field goal percentage entering Monday. “So just trying to open up the seams and get in open spots.”

“The more we were getting the ball reversed around the horn, the easier it was for me to get position inside and that was what was working best for us,” she added.

Brugler had 11 points in the first quarter as St. Joe’s went up 16-8. She was scoreless during the second period, which was key to La Salle tying things up before a Gabby Casey three spotted the Hawks a 22-19 lead at the break. Ziegler had just two of her points in the first half.

They both emerged as threats in the third quarter. Brugler capped a 9-0 Hawks run with a bucket inside as the Hawks went up 38-27 late in the third. She had seven in the frame and Ziegler scored eight as St. Joe’s led 43-22 heading to the fourth when Julia Nystrom banked in a triple to beat the buzzer.

Brugler and the Hawks continued to pour it on in the fourth. She capped a 7-0 Hawks run with a three to push the lead to 19 less than two minutes into the fourth as St. Joe’s eased down the stretch.

“We knew they were going inside,” La Salle head coach Mountain MacGillivray said. “When you have four kids who can shoot the lights out on the perimeter and have the best post player in the league (Brugler), the ball’s going inside. But I thought we did a great job of not allowing it to go in there effectively for a large part of the game until we got stretched out and had to do too much defensively.”

Brugler and Ziegler were both terrific for the Hawks last season when they went 20-11 (9-7) and reached the A-10 quarters. 

Brugler was a third team all-conference selection after averaging 16.7 ppg and 5.1 rpg, while shooting 52.7 percent from the floor. Ziegler was the Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year and a third team All-A-10 selection after averaging 11.8 ppg and 8.7 rpg and shooting 41.6 percent from the floor.

The front court duo was impressive again at the start of this season to help the program to an 11-1 start in non-conference action. Ziegler averaged 13.3 ppg, 9.8 rpg on 38.4 percent shooting, and Brugler averaged 15.8 ppg and 3.8 rpg on 51.9 percent shooting during the 11-1 start.

They’ve both been even better in conference play. 

Brugler came into Monday averaging 18.4 ppg, 5.0 rpg on 61 percent shooting Ziegler came in averaging 17.4 ppg, 3.0 apg and 1.0 bpg on 57.6 percent shooting, including 40.9 percent from three.

“I think what people try to do is they try to take them away, but if you take Talya away on the block, you’re gonna have Laura there as well,” Griffin said. “It’s really tough to guard because of our inside-outside game, and then you compile that with the shooters that we have and the playmakers we have on the perimeter, and we share the ball.”

La Salle came in winners of three straight after an eight-game skid. The Explorers got 14 points from Makayla Miller and 12 from Emilee Tahata, but they couldn’t survive an 0-for-11 outing from Molly Masciantonio, who went scoreless for just the sixth time in 79 career games at La Salle.

“Our margin for failure is really slim,” MacGillivray said. “We’ve got to play really well. We’ve got to play near perfect and we weren’t quite perfect, but we were improved.”

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St. Joe’s wins final Big 5 game in round robin format

Monday’s contest marked the end of an era in regards to Big 5 hoops. The city’s women’s programs will follow the men’s lead and welcome Drexel next year in a new tournament format that will conclude with a championship game.

The Hawks, who knocked off the Dragons 64-53 back on Nov. 19, made it a clean sweep this year anyway as they captured their first title in a decade to finish off round robin format.

The details of where and when are still TBD on the women’s side of the new Big 5 tournament next season. The plan is to copy the men’s three-team, two-game pod format before concluding with a championship game.

“On some level, I’m old school and I’m kind of sad to see it go,” MacGillivray said. “That’s the reality of it, but we’re embracing the change, we’re gonna make the most of it, and we’ll take it from there. We’ll see if the additional games we put on the schedule can be more successful for us and hopefully we can pull off two wins and find ourself in the championship.”