Willowbrook gets even with Blazers with 61-40 win
With the passing of the old year comes a clean slate and renewed hope.
"We're undefeated in 2009, and that's how we're looking at it," said Willowbrook girls basketball coach Troy Nelson.
The Warriors knocked off rival Addison Trail 61-40 in a West Suburban Gold contest, in their first game of the new year.
The win for Willowbrook (6-10, 3-2) avenged a loss to the Blazers (4-12, 2-3) suffered on Dec. 11. The Warriors earned Saturday's win by building a first-half lead, weathering the third quarter and getting a spark from Nicole Interrante down the stretch to secure the win.
"We're getting so much better," said Willowbrook guard Taylor Nelson, who tied with teammate Angela Domin to lead all scorers with 16 points.
"We wanted to win this game really bad. We came back and had four really hard practices in a row after our break, and we needed to step it up and win this one. We learned to win in those practices."
The Warriors have been a few good possessions or a few defensive stops away from turning a handful of their losses this year into wins, and their coach pointed to the value of recent practice time in moving forward.
"It was the first time since Thanksgiving we've had more than two practices in a row," Nelson said. "It was good for the kids because we had a lot of things to work on."
Willowbrook led 17-10 after a quarter and 36-17 at halftime thanks in large part to hot shooting from behind the arc from Nelson and Domin, each of whom buried three 3-pointers through two quarters.
"Thirty-six points is way too many points to give up in the first half," said Blazers coach Rob Schader.
The Blazers earned a 16-10 scoring edge in the third quarter thanks to 6 points from Mercedes Rallings and 4 apiece from Katie Kamide and Marissa Pezzopane, who led the Blazers with 10 points on the day.
"Our defense was a ton better in the third quarter," Schader said.
Interrante asserted herself in the fourth quarter, scoring 6 of her 10 points by pounding the glass and posting 5 steals in the post on the defensive end.
"She was as important as anyone for us today," Troy Nelson said. His daughter also pointed to better team cohesion in the face of the Blazers' third-quarter run.
"Early in the year we were getting down on ourselves when we were playing bad, and we need to help each other work through that and build it back up," Taylor Nelson said. "We're trying to help each other more."