Spartans' Stefely scores 30 in loss to Rosary

Jamie Stefely and the St. Francis Spartans didn't go quietly on their home court.

Stefely scored a season-high 30 points, and St. Francis took Rosary to the wire before losing 66-58 on Tuesday night at Spyglass Center in Wheaton.

It was a far cry from the 29-point Royals win in December at Rosary.

"The girls never gave up. That's what's important," St. Francis coach Leslie Fay-Dehn said.

After a nip-and-tuck first half, Rosary (16-6, 6-5 Suburban Catholic Conference) pushed out to a 52-34 lead after three quarters. But St. Francis scored 10 straight points to open the fourth, 7 by Stefely, to pull within 52-44 with 5:42 left. A pair of charge calls and a travel momentarily thwarted the rally, but a Stefely puback made it 58-53. The Spartans (7-13, 3-7) got as close as 61-58 with 49 seconds after a Jenny Eldridge 3-pointer.

"Give them credit. They didn't want to lose on their home court. They played their butts off," Rosary coach Dave Beebe said. "Once we got that lead, we kind of walked through. We can't walk through against St. Francis on their home court."

Stefely had it going early for St. Francis, scoring 17 points in the first quarter-and-a-half. She sat with two fouls with 3:45 left in the half and St. Francis up 19-17, and it was tied a minute later before Rosary blitzed the Spartans with a quick 12-0 run.

Stephanie Haugen scored 6 of her team-high 20 points during the stretch that gave Rosary a 35-25 halftime lead, which grew to 41-25 a minute into the third quarter.

"It was killer, that end of the second quarter," Fay-Dehn said. "Those two minutes felt like eight."

Rosary, which starts two posts in 6-foot-4 Katie Eckberg and 6-foot Jordan Rettig, went small midway through the first half with Eckberg out and pressed St. Francis into 10 turnovers in the second quarter to turn the tide.

"We were taking that chance tonight, going with the smaller lineup," Beebe said. "Once we got that press going I think it picked up the energy of the game quite a bit."

Rettig had 16 points and 11 rebounds for Rosary, which wasn't feeling very satisfied with how its third straight win played out.

"We've been doing well in practice, but for some reason it didn't translate today," Haugen said. "We're disappointed in ourselves that we couldn't put it together like we have in practice."

Kelly Reinke had 12 points and 9 rebounds for St. Francis. Stefely had 23 points last week against St. Edward - but against a big team like Rosary, 30 was all the more impressive.

"They're really good post players," Stefely said, "fun to play against."