Northwest girls roundup: Conant tops Belvidere
Playing its second game in less than 12 hours, Conant’s girls basketball team mustered up the energy to win its quarterfinal match of the Mundelein Christmas tournament.
Senior Kelly Lomas connected for 19 points with three 3-pointer for the Cougars in a 42-21 triumph over Belvidere in Saturday’s 9 a.m. contest of the 16-team tourney.
The Cougars (9-4) will face Huntley on Monday at 7:30 p.m. in the semifinals of the consolation bracket.
“After last night (46-26 loss at Barrington), it took us a while to get started,” said Cougars coach Dan Travers. “Kelly carried us with her play and gave us a good lift.”
The Cougars held the Bucs to under single digits each quarter.
Senior Lindsay Fillingim added 9 points for the Cougars and classmate Alyssa Rawleigh 8.
Fillingim scored all her points in the third quarter when the Cougars were able to extend their lead to 34-16 heading into the final eight minutes.
“The longer the game went, the stronger we got,” Travers added. “We played good defense and pushed the ball up the floor. Jenna Heneghan was all over the floor for us and led us in rebounds.”
Warren 49, Wheeling 41: Warren’s Alexis Leneau started out slowly, scoring only 2 points in the first half on Saturday night.
But she finished with a flourish, ending up with a season-high 18 points to lead the Blue Devils past visiting Wheeling 49-41 in the first round of the 2010 Blue Devil Classic.
“I felt I needed to step it up,” said Leneau, who canned 2 3-pointers in the third quarter. “I wasn’t playing bad in the first half, but in the third quarter, I started to play smart with the ball, get lots of touches and we kept working the ball around until one of us was open to take a good shot.”
Warren led 22-19 at the half, but the Wildcats came out with the hot hand to open the third quarter. Wheeling produced an 8-4 run to lead 27-26 with 4:45 left.
In the last three minutes of the quarter, Jessica Prince (13 points) scored 5 points and Leneau scored 7 in a 12-7 run to give the Blue Devils a 38-34 lead at the end of the third quarter.
“I had been working all week on getting the ball in the basket,” said Prince, who fouled out in the middle of the fourth quarter. “We got a good win against a pretty good team, and I am happy with that.”
Amanda Barger chipped in 10 points and 7 assists for Warren.
“You can’t ever been unhappy with a win,” said Warren coach John Stanczykiewicz, whose team improved to 4-7. “We’re still inconsistent defensively, and we have to play better interior defense.
“I thought we responded well in the third and early fourth quarters. We got the ball inside where we wanted to and got the shots that we wanted and Alexis hit them.”
Wheeling junior Leah Malsom led all scorers with a career-high 21 points while classmate Kellie Kuzmanic scored 13 points and led with 12 rebounds.
“I think we worked really hard tonight,” Kuzmanic said. “We gave up too many turnovers and we were trying to push it up too much and we got too ahead of ourselves.”
Wheeling fell to 2-10.
“It was a tough loss, and we are getting closer and closer,” said Wheeling coach Julissa Hernandez. “Once we get over that hump, hopefully it will give us the confidence to come out and play a full game.”
Irving SolomonPalatine 42, Niles North 32: Coach Leslie Schock#146;s Pirates (4-7) got off to a winning start in the Warren tourney. Palatine will face Wheeling at 7:30 p.m. on Monday when pool play resumes.