St. Charles North 55, South Elgin 36

Posted January 04, 2008 10:00 pm

By Brian Schaumburg Daily Herald Correspondent

Kelsey Smith dominated the first quarter Friday night.

Her St. Charles North teammates took care of the other three quarters as the North Stars cruised to a 55-36 Upstate Eight Conference victory over host South Elgin.

"I figured we just had to contain Kelsey Smith and not let her get a lot of touches," Storm coach Tim Prendergast said. "Right away, we couldn't guard her."

Smith, a 6-foot-4 junior center, scored North's first 6 points as the Storm (8-9, 1-4 UEC) opened with a man-to-man defense. Midway through the first quarter South Elgin switched to a 2-3 zone. The change didn't help much as Smith finished the quarter with 12 points on 6 of 9 shooting and 4 rebounds as North (11-4, 5-0) led 18-11.

"We knew that we needed to get it inside," North coach Katie Sauber said. "There definitely was a height advantage that we needed to make sure we played to."

Smith scored only 4 points the rest of the game, but that didn't matter.

Kiley Hackbarth hit two 3-pointers in the second quarter as North increased its lead at halftime to 29-15. South Elgin struggled to get anything going offensively in the quarter. The Storm went 1-for-15 from the field and turned the ball over 9 times. A Courtney Kumerow basket with 50 seconds left was the only Storm field goal of the quarter.

"I think we went through a 4- or 5-minute stretch were we missed layups and 10-footers. We have to make those shots," Prendergast said. "We dug ourselves a hole going into the second half."

The North Stars quickly put South Elgin away by scoring the first 6 points of the second half to open a 20-point lead, 35-15.

South Elgin, which shot 24 percent, got no closer than 16 points the rest of the way and trailed by as many as 28, 55-27, in the fourth quarter.

Smith added 9 rebounds to go with her 16 points despite sitting out the final 10 minutes. Hackbarth finished with 10 points. Anna Conrad had 7 points and 6 assists. Nika Sircher, Alex Messacar and Stephanie Horton each scored 6.

"One of the things we always talk about no matter if (the opponent) is play man or zone is we need to be patient with the ball," Sauber said. "We need to make sure we work that extra pass to get a better shot."

Kumerow led the Storm with 9 points and 13 rebounds. Dijon Smith added 6 points.