Geneva punishes Raiders' mistakes

Glenbard South learned a valuable lesson Friday night, with Geneva in the role of educator.

The lesson: A good opponent will punish you for your mistakes.

The Vikings (6-0, 2-0) punished many of Glenbard South's 40 turnovers with breakaway layups to claim a 58-34 Western Sun Conference victory in Glen Ellyn.

"I feel like our offense panicked. We were playing out of control," Raiders coach Julie Fonda said while also giving the Vikings defense credit.

"We were really excited going into this game and really focused because we knew it was going to be one of our tougher conference games," Geneva senior guard Emily Hinchman said. "So I'm just glad we were able to get a win tonight. We played really good team basketball tonight."

Hinchman was Geneva's chief thief, making 8 steals. She finished with 18 points, including a 3-pointer from midcourt that beat the second-quarter buzzer, as well as 5 assists.

"Emily Hinchman played a heck of a game tonight," Geneva coach Gina Nolan said. "She was everywhere on defense early on, just getting so many tips and steals and the buzzer-beater. That was so nice to see.

"She's just coming on. She's a great competitor, she's a great athlete and she just goes 110 percent all the time, which is good to see."

"She's a great player," Fonda added. "She hurt us last year."

Hinchman credited team defense for her slick hands.

"The guards just work together really well," Hinchman said. "We have a real good chemistry up top. When they're able to play their defense it opens up areas for me to get good steals out of it."

Taylor Whitley, the only other senior in the Geneva lineup, added 18 points and 5 steals.

Now the Raiders have to learn from this loss.

"We just got done talking about how we need to work harder in practice and that it can't just be 32 minutes on the floor when games come around," Fonda said. "We've got to prepare ourselves in practice. That means our posts have got to work each other harder and our guards have got to work each other harder."

Senior guard Meghan Pipal led the Raiders (5-2, 1-1) with 11 points, and sophomore center Nevena Markovic added 9.