Carmel puts clamps on Castro, Harvest Christian

The Carmel Catholic girls basketball team knew all about the scoring ability of Harvest Christian guard Paulina Castro. So the Corsairs turned up their defense a notch Monday night.

Using the same man-to-man approach they always do, the Corsairs switched off on Castro all night, "holding" the high-scoring Lions' junior to 15 points in a 47-38 nonconference win over Harvest Monday night at the Mitchell Swaback Athletic Center in Elgin.

"We knew about their prolific scorer and we wanted to take her out of the equation," said Carmel coach Kelly Perz, whose team won its third straight while snapping Harvest's winning streak at four.

Perz constantly switched defenders on Castro, with the bulk of the shutdown duties going to sophomore Jillian Johnson, as well as junior Alexa Amato and senior Sam Melillo.

"Jill Johnson did a great job on defense tonight but they all did," Perz said.

The Corsairs (4-6), who got off to a 15-4 start and never trailed in the game, turned that defense into offense as they scored 22 points off 23 Harvest Christian turnovers. Senior Karoline Yacono led the way for Carmel with 13 points.

"We wanted to prove to coach we're better than how we started out," said Yacono of the Corsairs' three-game winning streak. "We've had to focus more on the little things."

Yacono acknowledged her team's focus Monday was on defense and shutting down Castro.

"We had one girl on her the whole game faceguarding her," said Yacono, who added 5 rebounds and 4 assists.

Harvest Christian, which is proving to be one of the top Class 1A teams in the Chicago area, was able to get back in the game after being down 11 midway through the first quarter but the Lions (7-3) could never quite catch up.

Carmel led 24-18 at halftime and extended the advantage to 36-23 on a free-throw line jumper from Yacono with 1:45 left in the third quarter, the Corsairs' biggest lead of the game.

But the Lions kept fighting and eventually cut Carmel's lead to 41-36 on the second of back-to-back baskets from freshman Alyssa Iverson with 2:29 left in the game.

"They play hard and they never gave up," Perz said of the Lions. "I told my girls to never relax."

Carmel went on a 6-0 run to take a 47-36 lead with 53 seconds to play and Harvest could only manage 2 free throws from Castro with 44 seconds left. Sophomore Daija Pruitt hit back-to-back buckets for the Corsairs within 38 seconds of each other, one on a nifty feed underneath from Yocono, and senior Emma Rappe made 2 free throws to help Carmel keep the Lions at arm's length.

Pruitt and Rappe added 10 points each for Carmel, which shot 44 percent (20 of 45) from the field and outrebounded the Lions 32-28, led by 9 from Rappe.

"We're not only young but a lot of these girls haven't played together," said Perz. "We've had a bit of an adjustment period but now they're playing together on offense and defense and it shows with three (wins) in a row."

Senior Kylee Knox added 11 points for Harvest, which was 13-for-41 shooting (32 percent). Senior Morgan Lockwood had 10 rebounds for the Lions.

"That was a learning experience for us," said Harvest Christian coach Rich DeTamble of playing a team that advanced to the Class 3A Elite Eight last season before losing to Burlington Central, where DeTamble's daughter Aly plays.

"We played Champaign Central two nights ago and the kids put a complete game together. We scheduled Carmel on purpose to get this tough competition and they put some moves on us that we'll see down the road and that now we know we have to work on. We didn't shoot well tonight and rarely do we see the full-court pressure like we did tonight but I want teams to press us like that. Maybe this was good for us."

Westminster Christian 48, Cornerstone Christian 27: Maddie Versluys scored 20 points and had 6 rebounds and 8 steals as the Warriors (6-3) won their sixth straight in this nonconference game. Elise Van Noord added 8 points and 4 rebounds for Westminster.

Woodlands Academy 32, Elgin Academy 25: Freshman Madeline Sporina had 14 points for Elgin Academy in its Independent School League loss.