Wheaton Warrenville South's girls basketball team could use the week off it has coming.
The Tigers seemed to be everywhere in Thursday's 57-20 DuPage Valley Conference victory against Naperville North in Wheaton, exerting plenty of energy despite the big margin. Including Tuesday's overtime victory against Naperville Central, the Tigers (7-2, 4-0) have had a busy few days.
"It gets tiring, but we just have to push through," Tigers senior Sierra Bisso said of their frenetic on-court pace. "We know it's important for us. We know there will be a sub coming in if we work our hardest. We just have to go 100 percent until we get that break."
The Tigers are always one of the toughest defensive teams around, employing a 1-3-1 zone trap that causes a lot of intercepted or deflected passes. Thursday was no different.
"We want to push the ball. Tough defense. (Tigers coach Rob) Kroehnke always enforces defense, and if you work hard it's going to go into your offense. It's just what we try to do most of the time, and in the beginning we started off really good," Bisso said. "That's what we work on in practice. In practice he's like, move, move, move. Talk. Keep moving. And that's what we do. We just try our hardest to get deflections and steal passes. We work really hard to do that."
The hard work paid off in a 21-7 first quarter that led to a 32-11 halftime score. The Huskies (2-6, 0-2) made just 5 of 24 shots for the half.
"We were ice cold tonight," Huskies coach Jacquie Discipio said. "It was hard to yell at the girls at halftime because offensively I did feel like we had a lot of opportunities but we were ice, ice cold. Our defense is still up and down. When it's good it's good, and when it's rough it's rough for us.
"... Even in their halfcourt sets they're good. They just get in the passing lanes. I think we prepared. We knew they were going to run their 1-3-1. We knew their press. We prepared, we prepared, but when you play such a good, competitive, solid team, you have to bring your 'A' game, and I don't think we did that tonight."
The fast start was good to see for Kroehnke, who worried his team might let down after Tuesday's victory.
"We talked about coming out and making a statement defensively and working hard and pressure on the ball," Kroehnke said. "We did all those things really well and rebounded well. You can't let (Huskies guard Zoe) Swift do whatever she wants out there. I thought we did a good job of taking (Huskies forward Kayla) Sharples away at the high post. We did what we wanted to do."
The only disappointment for the Tigers came when junior Maggie Dansdill stole the basketball and drove for a layup, landing poorly and apparently injuring her right knee, though X-rays were negative, according to the team Twitter account. Still Dansdill finished with 12 points to go with 4 offensive rebounds, 3 steals and 3 assists.
Meghan Waldron led the Tigers again with 19 points, 11 in the first quarter. She added 4 steals and 3 assists.
