St. Francis evens score with Warriors
After losing to Wheaton Academy a week ago, St. Francis got sweet revenge Friday in the semifinals of the Lisle Holiday Cage Classic with an emphatic 52-34 girls basketball win over its rivals.
The Spartans took control at the beginning by scoring the first 7 points, and they never let go, leading from wire to wire.
St. Francis gets to defend last year's tournament championship against Antioch at 8 tonight.
"We were looking forward to the rematch," said Jenny Eldridge of St. Francis, who scored 10 points and pulled down a game-high 9 rebounds. "We were so disappointed in the way we played last week. It was a sweet victory to get back to the championship game by beating them."
The Spartans' 2-3 zone, which failed to stop the Warriors last week, was St. Francis' friend this time because it stopped the Wheaton Academy offense, which had done so much damage in the first game.
"We spent a lot of time on the 2-3 at practice this week," said Catherine Culligan, who led the Spartans in scoring with 16 points. "We talked about containing (Alexa Sharkey) and (Jenn Lee). We wanted to stop them whenever they were in position to shoot the ball."
The Warriors (10-5) cut the lead to 12-10 when Lee hit a 3-pointer near the end of the first quarter, but that's as close as they'd get all night. They were forced to shoot over the zone, and the shots were not falling.
Chrissy Belniak's 3-pointer with three seconds to play gave St. Francis a 15-10 lead, which they increased at the end of every quarter.
The Spartans (8-7) led 32-23 at the half and continued to apply the pressure in the third quarter, increasing the margin to 43-29.
"It's really great to be going to the finals," said Spartans coach Leslie Fay-Dehn. "We've had our ups and downs this year. We were talking all week that if we concentrated on defense and boxing out, that would spark our offense. Catherine did a great job of playing on the wing of the defense. She got in the passing lanes and got some tips that led to fast breaks."
Lee led the Wheaton Academy scoring with 15 points, including a trio of 3-pointers. Sharkey was held to 6 points.
"St. Francis did a great job and we didn't play very well," said Warriors coach Beth Mitchell. "They moved well without the ball and they were able to get the ball to the right people when they were open. Our press wasn't very effective tonight.
"They did a great job of keying on Alexa. She scored 20 points against them last week. She's our go-to player, and they took that away from us. When that happens it's difficult for us to score."