Batavia rebounds, blows out Belvidere
Football coaches always stress there's no bigger improvement their team makes than from Week 1 to Week 2.
Batavia girls basketball coach Tim DeBruycker knows his young team has work to do. But he also wasn't complaining about the progress they made in posting a 66-40 victory over Belvidere Friday at DeKalb's eighth annual Turkey Toss-up tournament after the Bulldogs lost their opener to Glenbard South by 20.
“From Tuesday to today (Friday), much happier,” DeBruycker said. “We have some girls stepping up on the offensive end.
“I'm not going to sit here and say it was a perfect game. We have to work on some small things. But there were some really good signs.”
It took all of 10 seconds for Batavia to get going when sophomore Katie Ryan cut to the low block, took a pass from Tamar Norville and scored inside.
Heather Anderson found Maddie Sychta inside on the Bulldogs' next possession for a 4-0 lead. Batavia (1-1) continued to click early, working for good shots and crashing the boards when it missed. Sychta's basket on the fourth shot of a trip made it 10-3, and by the time freshman point guard Liza Fruendt drained a 15-foot pull-up jumper the Bulldogs led 16-3.
Batavia never let its lead slip to single digits from there. Norville caught fire in the second quarter with a pair of long jumpers as part of her 8 points in the quarter for a 35-20 halftime lead.
“It (my shot) was on today, I was happy about it,” said Norville, a junior playing her second career varsity game.
“The first game (Tuesday) was with new girls and we really worked hard the next two days in practice to figure each other out. I feel like we showed that we could play as a team.”
About the only thing that hurt the Bulldogs were a few too many fouls. Belvidere (0-1) was in the bonus with 54 seconds left in the first quarter and wound up with 10 free throws in the first half making just 5. For the game neither team shot well at the line, 10 of 22 for Belvidere and 9 of 20 for the Bulldogs.
“I don't know how much of it was aggressiveness or poor position,” DeBruycker said. “You have to teach them to be aggressive at the right times and right places.”
Defensively Batavia held Belvidere to 19.6 percent shooting from the field (12 of 61). Sychta contributed to those misses with 4 blocked shots. One of just two seniors on the roster, she also grabbed 8 rebounds and scored 7 points.
Norville led the team with 14 points and 9 rebounds. Ryan added 10 points. When Haleigh Theuerkauf scored a pair of baskets in the fourth quarter and Mariah Zwart sank a late free throw, it gave the Bulldogs 12 players in the scoring column.
“We have a lot of girls who can hit a lot of points and make a lot of baskets,” Norville said. “Once we work together and get as many girls as we can in the game we can rack up those points.”
Batavia was equally balanced on the boards. Taylor Tousana's 2 rebounds in the fourth quarter gave the Bulldogs 14 players with at least one rebound. Freshman Erin Bayram's 7 rebounds off the bench contributed to the team's 57-29 advantage.
The Bulldogs don't have much time to rest, returning Saturday at 11 a.m. to play St. Bede, a team that lost a 48-36 game to Hampshire Friday and will challenge Batavia with its tight man-to-man pressure.
“We've got two tough opponents coming up,” DeBruycker said of St. Bede and Tuesday's game with Hampshire. “I want this team that is young to clean up. We have to finish. Sixty-six points is pretty good, I'm not going to lie, but I think we could have had even more with some of the easy shots (that missed).”