Warren handles Mundelein
Lexi Leneau instinctively slid headfirst in pursuit of a loose basketball and nearly wiped out a Warren cheerleader, who fortunately was paying attention.
Leneau quickly picked herself up off the court, dusted herself off and smiled. Her Warren teammate Amanda Barger smiled back, knowing it was Warren's ball out of bounds since a Mundelein player had touched the ball last.
“I didn't know the (Mundelein) girl tipped it,” Leneau said. “So I was like, ‘If I get it and throw it behind me, (Barger) is in perfect position to score a layup.' I was just going for it.”
Call it a simple hustle play.
With Warren up 19 points in the fourth quarter.
“I practice (sliding headfirst) a lot during softball season so I got the technique down,” Leneau, the starting left field on Warren's Class 4A regional championship team last spring, said with a smile.
No wonder Warren is on its longest winning streak of the season. The Blue Devils stretched it to three by doubling up visiting Mundelein 50-25 in North Suburban Lake Division action Tuesday night.
Warren (10-10, 2-5), which was coming off wins over Waukegan (Saturday) and Providence (Friday), has its longest winning streak since stringing together five in December of last season.
“We're playing together,” Barger said.
“Good ball movement,” Leneau added. “Everything is just flowing together.”
It flowed perfectly in the second half against Mundelein (12-12, 3-6).
Olivia Dunigan (11 points, 12 rebounds) had scored 8 points in the second quarter in helping the Mustangs outscore the Blue Devils 10-4 to take an 18-17 lead into the locker room.
But Warren owned the third quarter, pounding the ball inside to 6-foot-3 Jessica Prince and taking advantage of 3-of-4 shooting by Leneau, who led all scorers with 19 points, including three 3-pointers. Barger sank a pair of shots.
Prince scored 6 of her 10 points in the third, as Warren, just as it did against Providence, outscored its opponent 20-4.
“We knew if we stepped up, everyone would follow us,” Barger said of her and Leneau. “We're kind of the leaders on the team, so we have to start the spark and then everyone just follows behind us.”
Prince had picked up 2 fouls in the first quarter and sat the entire second.
“We gave up,” Mundelein coach Brian Evans said. “When Prince came back in, we started playing like she was Wilt Chamberlain and we were the rest of the NBA. We talked about it at halftime. We said, ‘She's going to come back in the game and we can't let down our intensity. We had a defensive scheme on her that we had practiced. We were attacking her.”
Warren might have recognized the strategy.
“Same scheme we used when Sarah Boothe played here,” said Evans, whose Mustangs were the only NSC team to beat Boothe, currently playing at Stanford, in her four varsity seasons.
“(Prince) scored 3 quick baskets and our defensive rotation wasn't there,” Evans said. “This group of girls, when they get down, they stop playing hard.”
Warren coach John Stanczykiewicz credited his team's all-out effort for its dominating second-half performance. The Blue Devils outscored Mundelein 13-3 in the fourth, with the Mustangs' only points coming on a late 3 by Maegan Schultz.
“When you play hard, good things generally happen,” Stanczykiewicz said. “We had some plays out there that were the result of just kids playing hard, moving their feet, sprinting.”
Besides Prince, Barger (7 rebounds) also scored 10 points for Warren. Warren's 5-5 Cheyenne Fitts deserved high fives for hustling for 5 rebounds. Alyssa Phillips grabbed 12 rebounds.
“We certainly didn't feel good about ourselves this time last week (after a loss to Zion-Benton), but I got to hand it to the girls,” Stanczykiewicz said. “They stayed positive, worked hard and they put together a nice string for ourselves.”