Playing at the Mesquite High School gymnasium Tuesday night, the Seton Catholic Sentinels got revenge on their conference rival with a decisive 57-36 win over the Wildcats.

It was a very different game than their Jan. 11 meeting. Played at Seton, the previous contest was an overtime thriller that saw Mesquite close what was once a 12-point deficit to come away with a 60-54 win.

The Wildcats opened the scoring on Tuesday night, but it was the only lead they held all game.

The difference for the Sentinels was defending the paint, according to head coach Karen Self.

“We’re a very disciplined team. We don’t foul a lot,” Self said. “In the first game, in order to not foul, we kept retreating and giving ground. We worked really hard since then to defend the drive, to bring extra help, to make them beat us from the outside.”

The Sentinels’ efforts were apparent in Mesquite’s scoring droughts, with their first points of the second quarter coming with 3:52 remaining in the half.

Save one free throw, the Wildcats didn’t score in the second half until roughly 2:05 remained in the third quarter.

Mesquite’s game plan shifted to the outside, with 13 of their 44 total shots coming from beyond the arc. They made just three of those, with the first coming in the closing minutes of the third quarter.

Mesquite head coach Candice Gonzales characterized her team’s play as choppy and lacking fluidity.

“They shot very well, we shot very poorly," she said. "We adjusted our defenses and every time we adjusted, they had an answer.” 

The defensive adjustment came in the form of a full-court press implemented in the second half, but Seton’s lead kept growing.

They ended the first quarter with an 11-10 lead. From then on it was all Sentinels, jump-started by a 12-2 run to start the second quarter.

Seton's second-half lead was never less than 13 points.

“We came out and had the intensity. We had that chip on our shoulders,” said Seton sophomore Amanda Barcello.

Barcello led the Sentinels with 18 points, but both head coaches pointed to her defense as the game-changer.

“She does great on defense,” Gonzales said. “She has long arms, she gets blocked shots—I don’t even know how many she had tonight, I mean it must have been half a dozen."

Barcello came close to that estimate, with five blocks in the contest.

“She scored a lot of points because that was what was open, but her defense was what really helped us turn the corner in the second half,”  Self said. “She owned this game. It was her night.”

Barcello said she owed the night to someone else.

“I prayed to our coach [Tiffany Tate],” Barcello said. “I asked her to guide me through it and hold my hand and she proved to me that she was here with me by my side.”

Tate died last September after a battle with cancer and cystic fibrosis. The team has rallied around the mantra of “Tate strong,” printed in block letters on the back of their warmups.

Both teams now have just one loss within the 4A Desert Sky region — to each other.

The fate of their final regional standings will be partly controlled by the Arcadia Titans, whose final two games of the season will be against Seton and Mesquite.

The 3rd-ranked Sentinels (14-2, 7-1) will head to Arcadia to play the 14th-ranked Titans Thursday night.