WW South outlasts St. Charles East in OT
As hard as points were to come by Thursday at the Schaumburg Thanksgiving Tournament, Wheaton Warrenville South's 6-point overtime against St. Charles East could have passed for an offensive explosion.
Sure enough, when the Saints finished their ice-cold evening by missing all five of their overtime shots, Wheaton Warrenville South had itself a 32-28 overtime win.
Making 12 of 37 shots from the field and 5 of 10 at the free-throw line wasn't necessarily pretty for the Tigers (1-1), but they turned those numbers into their first win with a couple zone defenses that the Saints shot just 21 percent (8 of 38) against.
"Sure, we'd love to make some free throws, love to make some layups and then we don't have to worry about four extra minutes," said WW South coach Rob Kroehnke, whose team nearly broke the school record of fewest points scored in a victory (29).
"But when you work that hard defensively good things happen. That was one of the hardest I've seen a group work."
The Tigers bounced back from Tuesday's 52-45 loss to Rockford Boylan. Senior Caitlin Schwark scored 13 points and sophomore Kasey Gassensmith came off the bench with 9. Only two other Tigers scored.
"We've been working really well together so it's just good to pull it out and know we can pull those games out," Schwark said. "We came out the full game. We didn't have any first-quarter jitters."
St. Charles East (0-2) led 6-5 after the opening quarter on a pair of 3-point shots by Jaime Rust.
Of the Saints' 8 field goals, 6 were 3-pointers. St. Charles East struggled penetrating and with its ball movement to create better looks.
"We're not playing real sharp," Saints coach Lori Drumtra said. "We're not moving real well without the ball. We have a lot of people standing. You've got to be able to get it inside and do some damage and we weren't. We were relying entirely on our 3-point shooting."
The Tigers held the Saints scoreless for the final 6:11 of the second quarter to lead 15-11 at halftime. After Lexi Baltes swished a 3 to tie the game at 19, WW South scored the final five points of the third quarter to lead 24-19.
Heidi Ansiel's putback basket gave WW South the largest lead for either team at 26-20, then the Tigers didn't score again over the final seven minutes of the fourth quarter.
The Saints weren't able to do much more in that span, but they did get 3-pointers from Baltes and another from Rust with 1:04 left to play that forced overtime.
St. Charles East got the ball back after Rust's 3 and had a chance to win in regulation - yet couldn't get a shot off as the clock hit 0:00.
"It seemed like we weren't very concentrated on the moment," Rust said. "You have to give the other team credit, they played very good defense, they were up on us the entire game.
"We need to get our offense together. We need to start creating stuff for ourselves, taking the ball to the basket."
Rust's two free throws put the Saints ahead early in overtime. Gassensmith's 2 free throws tied the game, and Ansiel's pull-up 14-foot jumper with 1:32 remaining put the Tigers ahead to stay, 30-28.
Schwark's 2 free throws capped the scoring, sending a Saints team that returned four starters to a surprising 0-2 start.
"It's disappointing because I think the girls thought they would do much better in this tournament," Drumtra said. "So did I. We'll see how they respond. This is an early test."
Rust led the Saints with 11 points and Baltes added 8. Danielle Jordan came off the bench to tie Stephanie Roan for a team-high 5 rebounds.
St. Charles East will look for its first win at 11:30 a.m. Saturday against Schaumburg, just after Wheaton Warrenville South plays Glenbrook South.
Wheaton warrenville SOuth 32, St. Charles East 28, OT
Wheaton Warrneville South - Ansiel 3 0-2 6, Schwark 4 2-4 13, Shain 0 0-0 0, Neal 2 0-1 4, Ottolin 0 0-0 0, Gassensmith 3 3-3 9, Watts 0 0-0 0, Phillip 0 0-0 0. Total: 12 5-10 32.
St. Charles East - Roan 1 0-0 3, Baltes 2 2-2 8, Rust 3 2-2 11, Dailey 0 0-0 0, Sigona 0 0-0 0, Schnier 2 1-2 5, Jordan 0 1-2 1, Leibforth 0 0-0 0, Asquini 0 0-0 0.
WWS 5 10 8 2 6-32
SCE 6 5 9 7 2-28
3-point baskets: WWS: Schwark 3; SCE: Rust 3, Baltes 2, Roan.