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St. Edward rallies from 20-point defict to down Wheaton Academy

Madelyn Spagnola thought Thursday's girls basketball game at Wheaton Academy was St. Edward's best victory of the season.

Considering the Green Wave trailed the Warriors by 20 points late in the third quarter, Spagnola has a point.

St. Edward's rousing fourth-quarter rally earned the Green Wave a 49-46 Metro Suburban Conference West Division win in West Chicago.

"It's a huge win," said Spagnola, who finished with a game-best 22 points.

"I think (Yssa Santo Domingo) and (Spagnola) just had big hearts," Wheaton Academy coach Beth Mitchell said of the St. Edward guards. "They played with big hearts. And I think we lost our composure. We lost our confidence a little bit. We got rattled. When they cut the lead to about 12 it was almost like I could see the wind coming out of our faces."

Wheaton Academy (14-6, 4-4) owned the first 22 minutes of the game, going up 13-3 on a Jamie Netzley basket with 2:58 to go in the first period. The lead hit 17 points in the second, and St. Edward (11-8, 4-4) couldn't get closer than 11 points again until the fourth.

"We weren't getting what we wanted in the first half," St. Edward coach Michelle Dawson said. "We had too many times offensively where we rushed and we weren't hitting and that's almost as bad as a turnover because you're not in position to get any kind of offensive board and you're not in any kind of rhythm and we had trouble getting back and stopping their transition offense."

Wheaton Academy took a 40-20 lead with 1:58 to go in the third quarter after an Analise Richcreek basket. But that's when "the lid came off the basket" for the Green Wave, Dawson said.

The Green Wave finished the third on an 8-2 run to cut the lead to 14 points, the same margin as at the end of the first and second quarters.

"We came out of the locker room in the third and I thought for sure they kind of had it," Spagnola said. "Our coach just told us she wanted us to get on a good run and right in that fourth quarter we came out, hit a couple of huge shots, got a couple of good steals. We were great on the defensive end."

St. Edward scored the first nine points of the fourth quarter, then finally took the lead on Katelyn Castoro's three-point play with 22.5 seconds left.

Castoro finished with 15 points, all in the second half and 11 in the fourth quarter.

"Katie Castoro did a great job for us scoring in the paint. But really they just kept fighting," Dawson said.

Liana Ledesma led Wheaton Academy with 13 points.

"You can't play against a good team like St. Ed's and have a 20-point lead and just let them whittle away at it," Mitchell said. "They're too good of a team to just allow them to do whatever they want. I told them that at halftime, I said this team has the firepower to be able to get back in the game very easily, and obviously they proved it."

Follow Orrin on Twitter @Orrin_Schwarz

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