COLUMBIA, Ill. – The Father McGivney Griffins girls basketball team kicked off the season in the 14th Annual Columbia Tip-Off Classic Monday night.

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They took on the Waterloo Bulldogs and beat them in a low-scoring game by a score of 33-26.

McGivney used its extensive bench as eight different Griffins found the score sheet.

“I think we went 11 deep, and we could have went 13,” McGivney head coach Jeff Oller said after the game. “It’s a deep roster. Again, figuring out those roles and where everybody is. We’re just trying to give everybody some minutes here and there to figure out what we’re going to be.”

“It’s a new year. You kind of want to see where these roles end up. We thought it would be more of a committee-type scoring deal. That’s what it was tonight,” Oller added.

Izzie Venarsky was the game’s only double-digit scorer with 10 points. Sabrina Ivnik had six, Alexa Jones had five, and Julia Behrmann and Emme McGaughey added three each for the Griffins.

Waterloo’s Sam Juelfs opened up the game with a basket and one before the Griffins came to life. Venarsky scored a basket and then Behrmann put down three straight free throws to take a 5-3 lead. Waterloo answered with a three-pointer, but McGivney led 7-6 after the first quarter.

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Zoe Oller scored to open the second followed by a three from Ivnik to push the lead to 12-6. The Bulldogs came back to make it 12-11 before McGaughey splashed a three to extend the lead. McGivney led 17-14 at the half.

Waterloo came back to take a 24-23 lead after three quarters.

“Stop the drive. That’s where a lot of it was happening,” Oller told his team at the break. “Stopping the drive and making the easy play offensively. I think in the third kind of when they made that run, we had some errant passes for sure. But overall, just great defensive effort.”

McGivney locked back in for the fourth and outscored the Bulldogs 10-2, going onto the season-opening win. The Griffins will take on the hosting Columbia Eagles in the semifinals on Wednesday, Nov. 20 at 7:30 p.m.

“I’ve been saying since the summer, they’re scrappy. They’re scrappy, tough, quick kids,” Oller said about his team. “I was worried about foul trouble coming in just because of the way we’ve been letting them go in practice because we know that’s how we want to play.”

This style showed early on with McGivney playing a high-press, aggressive type of defense.

“They were getting after it,” Oller said. “That was a lot of focus in the first two weeks at practices. Great to see them go out there and execute it. Great communication, moving on the pass, all the types of things we’ve been working on. They did great.”

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