Saints sprint past South Elgin
Although St. Charles East had a comfortable lead, it was letting South Elgin hang around a little too long.
The Saints led for the majority of Thursday night's Upstate Eight Conference girls basketball game, but the host Storm was always right there.
That was until East broke open the game with a 16-0 run at that extended from the end of the third quarter to the beginning of the final period. The run propelled the Saints to a 59-43 victory and improved their conference record to a perfect 4-0 (7-4 overall) going into the stretch of holiday tournaments.
"It was kind of the nail in the coffin right there," East coach Lori Drumtra said. "It's hard to come back from that. It never felt too uncomfortable, but they hung around."
Storm (5-7, 1-3) guard Amanda Sieverding-Thomas brought her team to within 35-31 after making a pair of free throws with 4 minutes, 34 seconds left in the third quarter.
Saints forward Kara Schnier (8 points) and South Elgin forward Dijon Smith (10 points, 7 rebounds) exchanged offensive putbacks to keep the Saints' lead at 37-33 with 3:09 left.
Jaime Rust then kick-started the Saints' decisive run when she extended East's lead.
South Elgin did not score another point until Sieverding-Thomas connected on a runner with 5:20 left in the game. The Storm missed 9 straight shots during the run.
"The execution at the end of the third quarter was huge," said Saints' guard Lexi Baltes, who finished with game highs of 17 points and 9 rebounds. "There was a lot of energy out there tonight."
The Saints scored 8 points in the final minute of the third quarter with a basket from Rust and 3-pointers from Katie King and Natasha Lalos (13 points). Lalos' bomb came with time expiring in the period, which also deflated the Storm.
"It was a close game, I blinked and it was a runaway," South Elgin coach Tim Prendergast said. "I don't know where it went."
Some of it went with the Saints' ability to take care of the ball in the second half. After committing 11 turnovers in the first half, East coughed the ball up just 4 times in the second half. Of those 4 turnovers, 3 came after the game was well in hand in the third quarter.
The rest came with the Saints' defensive effort on South Elgin center Courtney Kumerow. The junior was held to just 2 points and went 0 of 5 from the floor in the game. Alyssa Krause led the Storm with 13 points.