St. Francis sees improvement against Willowbrook
St. Francis coach Jeff Gerdeman was happy with the progress his Spartans made from their first game to their second.
Willowbrook coach Terry Harrell can't wait to see his Warriors do the same.
"They're coming along," Gerdeman said after the Spartans defeated Willowbrook 51-40 Friday night at the Willowbrook Thanksgiving Tournament. "Their chemistry is really good. They're working hard. But it's a lot of new stuff, and it's going to take us a while to jell. It's going to take us a while to learn the new system. They're getting after it. You can't fault their effort. Their effort is fantastic. The execution, at times we're forcing it in and getting ourselves into trouble."
Still trying to adjust to their new coach, the Spartans (1-1) showed improvement from Wednesday's loss at Glenbard West. Junior Kelly McShea led all scorers with 15 points, including four 3-pointers. Junior center Fiona McMahon added 13 points and 15 rebounds.
"We had a nice 1-2 punch from McMahon inside and McShea outside," Gerdeman said. "We didn't finish the way we wanted to. We didn't finish very strong, but it's only the second game in. New system, new teammates, so we kind of expect that."
St. Francis trailed midway through the second period, then scored the final 12 points of the quarter to take a 25-17 halftime lead. They scored the first 5 points of the third quarter before Willowbrook's Louisa Reese scored on a lay-in to end the run.
Willowbrook managed to cut the margin to 6 points as late as the 3:18 mark of the fourth quarter, but a McMahon free throw was followed by 2 McShea 3-pointers, and suddenly the lead was back to an insurmountable 13 points.
"We were just not prepared to play," said Harrell, also a first-year coach. "I'll attribute some of that to nervous energy. It was the first time with me. We did a lot of stuff for the first time. The girls were really nervous pregame. ...
"It was just a lot of stuff they weren't used to. I hoped that nervous energy would burn off, but by the time it burned off the game was over. I didn't see the team I expected to see until midway through the third quarter."