Cardinals keep tourney hopes alive

There were few reasons to believe that the North Central women's basketball team had a chance to beat College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin co-leader Carthage on Saturday in Naperville, but nobody told that to the host Cardinals.

North Central outbattled Carthage in a contest that was physical from start-to-finish and came away with a 65-55 victory, keeping its hopes alive to qualify for the four-team CCIW postseason tournament.

"This win is huge," said Barb Williams, who led the Cardinals with a season-high 28 points. "They're tied for first in our conference and they beat us badly the last time we played them. Now we have to win our last four conference games to have a chance to make the tournament.

"We were underdogs in every way. We're smaller, they've beaten us before, and their record is much better than ours. And they're physical. But we weren't intimidated by it. With all the hiccups we've had, this could put us back on track and we can take care of it one game at a time."

When the two teams met at Carthage last month, the Reds won 91-54.

"Our team has been hot and cold all year," said North Central coach Emily Bauer. "Either we come out and play really hard, or we don't come out at all. Today we came out hard."

Carthage (16-5, 8-2), with a trio of local products in its starting lineup -- Erika Buchholz and Lisa Gartelos of Lisle and Carlie Janowiak of Waubonsie Valley -- held a 25-24 lead at the end of the first half, as Williams kept the Cardinals in the game with 18 points before the break.

But the Cardinals went ahead for good on a basket and a pair of free throws by Brianna Parra that made it 29-27.

With eight minutes remaining in the game, the Cardinals held their biggest lead, 44-32 after a Jackie Errico layup with an assist from Parra.

Carthage was able to pull within 5, but that was as close as it would get. Parra led the way with 16 of her 19 points in the second half.

"Our defense was the reason we won," Parra said. "They're great shooters and they're really strong in the post. We just wanted to make sure we had our hands up, that we boxed out and rebounded. Our offense followed from that."

"Our man-to-man defense was effective," Bauer said. "Offensively, we had to go inside all night because our players weren't hitting from the perimeter. We did a good job of finding our post players."

The Cardinals had a 40-33 edge in rebounding and prevented any of the Reds from reaching double figures in scoring.

There were 51 fouls in the game, with Carthage committing 30. Both teams struggled at the foul line, but North Central's hitting 29 of 47 free throws to Carthage's 14 of 25 was an advantage for the hosts.

"I think the physical nature of the game benefited North Central a little," said Carthage coach Tim Bernero. "They wanted to play a little more physical because of the way we handled them up there. But they did a really good job of not letting us get the ball where we wanted to. We couldn't get into our offense most of the day. That's to their credit."