Buffalo Grove 55, Hersey 38

For a girls basketball team that is at the level of Buffalo Grove, games like Friday night against Hersey are considered to have been played at less than their best.

The visiting Bison still won the Mid-Suburban East contest 55-38 and raised their record 21-1 and 5-0 at the midway point of league play.

For Hersey, games like Friday was one of its best of the season even though its record fell to 6-13 and 1-4 in the conference.

"It wasn't easy," said Buffalo Grove coach Tom Dineen. "Hersey played hard.

"We have a difficult schedule right now. We're a little banged up."

You could hardly tell from the way the Bison played.

They took a 12-10 edge after the first quarter behind 4 points from Ellen Ayoub and 3 each from Allison Mocchi and Heather Nisbet.

For Hersey, Sarah Stoltzner scored 4 points.

Buffalo Grove broke it open in the second quarter with a 15-7 advantage as Ayoub and Mocchi added another 4 points.

"We weren't really happy with the way we played," said Ayoub, who played three-and-a-half quarters and finished with a game-high 20 points including 6-for-6 at the free throw line in the fourth quarter. "We've got to come out every game and play hard. We set goals offensively. We want to keep teams under a certain number of points, pass inside."

Ayoub agreed that Hersey played a physical game.

"We talked about that at the end of the first quarter," Ayoub said. "They're always scrappy."

"I didn't think so," said Hersey coach Mary Fendley when asked if her team played physically. "We were in a stretched-out 2-3. We fouled a lot. I didn't think it was the physical play.

"I thought we played well tonight. It's hard to match up against a team like Buffalo Grove. Our 3-pointers, we usually make more of those. We wanted to be patient. They made good passes off the dribble. That's why they're one of the top teams in the state."

Dineen was pleased with the play of Stacy Lialios (5 points) off the bench.