South Elgin tops St. Edward
Every opponent South Elgin faces knows that one of the keys to beating the Storm's girls basketball team is to limit the scoring of junior standout Becca Smith. While many have tried, few have been successful at that.
But earlier in the season, when the Storm struggled to a 2-7 start, Smith wasn't getting a lot of offensive help.
Those days appear to be over.
With Smith scoring a game-high 25 points, but getting strong support from freshman Samantha Uveges (17 points) and junior Lania Robinson (8 points), the Storm won its fourth straight and fifth in the last six games Tuesday night, downing St. Edward 62-50 in nonconference action at South Elgin.
“We're trying to even it out,” said Uveges, who added 5 steals and 4 assists. “The more passes, the more opportunities. It has to be a team effort. We're picking each other up more and we have more energy throughout the game.”
Each team struggled to get back into the flow of the game after the holiday break, combining to shoot 6-for-27 in a first quarter that ended in a 7-7 tie. Leading 25-21 with 2:07 left in the first half, the Storm (7-8) went on a 7-4 spurt that ended with Uveges scoring with 5 seconds left to give her team a 32-25 lead at the break.
Then, the Storm opened the second half with a 6-2 run that extended the lead to 11, 38-27, just 2 minutes into the quarter, and left St. Edward (12-4) chasing the rest of the night.
“We came out flat in the second half against East Aurora in our last game so we wanted to come out strong tonight,” said South Elgin coach Tim Prendergast. “We played a lot of kids tonight and we've got good kids coming off our bench. Kelsey Prince, Kara Rodriguez, Deandra Anderson ... they all played well tonight.”
St. Edward did battle back with an 8-2 run to crawl within 5 at 40-35 by the end of the third quarter but the Storm exploded for a 14-2 run to start the fourth quarter and never looked back. Robinson had all 8 of her points in the fourth quarter for the Storm, which had as much as a 17-point lead midway through the fourth quarter.
“I think our legs were a little fresher in the fourth quarter,” said Prendergast. “We were able to extend the lead.”
South Elgin's depth and defense, along with St. Edward's inability to control the basketball, led to 30 turnovers for the Green Wave, who played without junior post Alex Lee (broken fingers). She is expected to miss two more weeks.
“St. Ed's is a good team,” Prendergast said. “(St. Edward coach) Michelle (Dawson) does a nice job with them. It's the second time we've played them and it's a nice local rivalry. We were fortunate tonight to not face (Lee). We don't have a lot of size.”
In addition to her 25 points, Smith had 10 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals for South Elgin, while junior Callie Johnson led St. Edward with 18 points. Junior Paige Gannon added a strong 16 points and 14 rebounds.
“We weren't strong with the ball in our hands tonight,” said Dawson. “They put pressure on us and we weren't strong. We were lackadaisical and we didn't have our usual effort and hustle. I thought our half-court defense wasn't too bad we just have up way too much in transition.
“But all these mistakes tonight are very fixable.”