Freshmen making immediate impact at Geneva, St. Charles East

One of the highlights of every basketball season is seeing the new faces who emerge as impact players.

This year is certainly no exception. It hasn't taken long at all for a couple freshmen to flash their considerable skills for two teams off to a combined 12-1 record.

One of them is Sara Rosenfeldt, a 6-foot freshman forward at St. Charles East. She scored 14 of her team-high 17 points during the Saints' 40-point second half in a come-from-behind win over St. Charles North on Saturday night.

Rosenfeldt also grabbed 9 rebounds, and afterward her coach Lori Drumtra said, "She doesn't play like a freshman. I'm really proud of her."

Geneva has the same thoughts toward Margaret Whitley. Coming into the season with so much experience and talent returning inside, the one question for the Vikings was whether their guard play would be good enough to keep Geneva winning at the high level it has been for so many years.

Whitley has answered any doubts. She came off the bench in the first five games and provided excellent play each time, capped with a team-high 14 points in last Thursday's win at St. Charles North.

She earned her first start the following game at Batavia and once again led Geneva, this time with a career-high 20 points.

"She is playing really good," said Geneva coach Sarah Meadows, echoing a near identical sentiment as Drumtra. "She doesn't play like a freshman that's for sure."

Abby Novak, who along with Janie McCloughan and Grace Loberg forms the nucleus of the returning experience from Geneva's 2013 state team, said she expected Whitley to make this type of impact.

"It's awesome," Novak said. "I knew she was a great player but to see her in the game and see her succeed as much as she's succeeding, she has such a big role on our team. She stepped up tonight (at Batavia). It's really helped us."

"It's been such an experience," Whitley said. "It's been so fun to play with all these girls. They are so welcoming and it has been such an honor to play with them especially Abby and Janie their senior year. It's been a lot of fun and I really appreciate their welcoming."

Lesson learned: While Geneva is right where it wants to be after six games - 6-0 - it hasn't always been pretty closing out the wins.

Double-digit leads against Glenbard South and St. Charles North turned into nail-biters in the final seconds with the opponents having shots in the air that could either have won or tied the game - games that the Vikings appeared to be in position to win going away.

"We'll definitely learn from it," Whitley said. "Everyone on our team has to learn from it and get better."

"I feel it is a pattern for us we play well and we kind of go off in our own world a little," Meadows said. "I told the kids after the game we have to focus better."

One problem has been free-throw shooting. Geneva made 8 of 15 against Glenbard South, 9 of 22 at St. Charles North and then 12 of 25 vs. Batavia - a combined 29 for 62 for 46.7 percent, which led Meadows to this quip this after beating Batavia.

"I promise you we practice free throws," Meadows said. "I promise we do. We just have to get better there. We could extend the game so much more if we make free throws."

Stepping up: Meadows singled out Novak's play against Batavia.

With McCloughan sidelined with a concussion, Novak did a little of everything with 12 points, 9 rebounds, 3 steals, 3 assists and 2 blocked shots.

"Abby can play like that every single night," Meadows said. "She stepped up in a big way."

Hoping to bounce back: It was a disappointing weekend for St. Charles North - who went 0-2 in UEC River play with hard-fought losses to both Geneva and St. Charles East.

Coach Sean Masoncup liked the way his team rallied from 17 points down to get within a point against Geneva.

"This program hasn't been a top-notch program in awhile and they have to learn to become great," Masoncup said. "A great team makes adjustments at half and executes, and we did."

Kaneland also opened its conference season with a loss to Morris last week, then fell to 0-2 with a loss to Sycamore on Tuesday when the Knights only scored 20 points. That after the Knights had gone 4-0 before conference play began.

"It will be a tough conference. A good conference to play in," Kaneland coach Ernie Colombe said.

The Kaneland coach said a lot of the offensive woes so far can be overcome.

"There are certainly a lot of things we can fix," Colombe said after Friday's loss. "We have to take care of the ball. Our turnovers on offense put us in some bad spots defensively. When we set up defensively I liked our defense. Our kids are fighters. They want to win games. I wish we could have come out on top but this will make us better at the end of the year."