Batavia's defense shuts down Sycamore

By the time Batavia called off the dogs, its defense had turned Tuesday night's game against Sycamore into a rout.

The Bulldogs' offense never established any consistency, and at times it went dormant, but the same could not be said for a defensive effort that forced 34 turnovers, which led to a 49-29 win in Western Sun Conference action.

Batavia grabbed a lead in the opening minutes, but things turned quickly as Sycamore managed to play at its preferred tempo.

"We were not aggressive at all in the first half," Batavia coach Tim DeBruycker said. "We let (Sycamore) slow the pace, and they were playing very well."

The visiting Spartans led 13-10 after one quarter, but that would represent half of their total scoring output as Batavia's extended defense began to pick up the intensity.

"We have to realize that because we're the No. 1 team in the conference right now, every team is going to play better when they play against Batavia," Melissa Norville said.

As the Spartans (4-14, 0-8) struggled to do anything other than play catch along the perimeter, the Bulldogs took a 20-16 lead at the break after Natalie Tarter turned a putback into a 3-point play with just under a minute left.

But the Spartans still had another run in them, and scored the first 6 points of the second half.

"We played two and a half quarters of good, solid basketball," Sycamore coach Ryan Picolitti said. "We worked hard to stay in the game, then made mistake after mistake and let it get away from us."

Seeing his team fall behind again, and not wanting a repeat of the first quarter, DeBruycker called a timeout two minutes into the third quarter.

"I just told them to play Batavia basketball," DeBruycker said. "I hadn't seen the kind of basketball that we can play."

The Bulldogs took their coach's words to heart and by the end of the third quarter they held a 32-24 lead.

But Batavia didn't make things as easy as it could have, missing several clean scoring opportunities which allowed Sycamore to hang around.

"We were settling for jump shots too much, and didn't convert enough of the turnovers into points," DeBruycker said. "We were getting the ball to the basket, we just weren't finishing."

As the second half wore on, Batavia took away everything the Spartans tried to do with the ball, finishing the game with 19 steals while allowing just 4 points over the last 13 minutes.

"We were seeing where their passes were going, and getting good position," Batavia junior guard Kelsey Oswald said.

Tarter led Batavia (13-2, 8-0) with 11 points and also had 6 steals. Norville scored 10, and was one of three Bulldogs with 4 steals.