Naperville Central wins own tournament
Catherine Tanck didn't need to be reminded the last time Naperville Central won its girls basketball tournament.
"It's been seven years. Nuss (coach Andy Nussbaum) makes that point at the beginning of every practice," said the Redhawks senior, "that we have to win this tournament."
Nussbaum proudly rattled off that historical fact one more time after the Redhawks beat three-time defending champion Trinity 48-44 in Saturday's championship of the Naperville Central/Benet Tip-Off Tournament in Naperville.
It is Naperville Central's first championship since 2002 - Candace Parker's junior year. And as a giddy Nussbaum pointed out, it's the first time since 1993 that "we won it without someone named Candace."
"That tells you what kind of group we got," Nussbaum said. "because I think this is a pretty good tournament. For where we are at this point in the season, I couldn't be happier."
Redhawks junior point guard Emma Ondik scored 15 points, none bigger than her running 40-footer off glass as time expired in the third quarter, putting Naperville Central ahead 36-34. Naperville Central (6-0), up 12-4 after a quarter, had trailed 28-20 at the half. Ondik's shot gave the Redhawks the lead for good.
"I just knew that there wasn't much time left," Ondik said, "so I had to just throw it up. It gave us momentum going into the fourth quarter."
An Ondik three-point play pushed the lead to 39-34, and she fed Claire Fleming for a backdoor layup with 3:03 left for a 45-40 game. Two Ondik free throws with 13.8 seconds left made it 48-44, all but sealing the win.
"You gotta go a long way to find a point guard as good as the one we have," Nussbaum said. "I'll take her over anyone else we've seen so far."
Tanck scored 14 points and pulled down 10 rebounds and Emma Donahue had 8 points and 6 rebounds for Naperville Central, winners of a third close game in eight days after beating Bartlett in overtime and Sandburg by a point. Fleming scored 9 points while being switched to defend Trinity leading scorer Megan Podkowa. Podkowa scored 16 points but missed a pair of 3-point attempts in the final minute.
Trinity (4-2) managed just 16 points in the second half after a 21-point second-quarter outburst. Trinity made five 3-pointers in the first half - but went 0 of 9 from beyond the arc after the intermission.
"We realized that we had to get out on their shooters even more," Ondik said, "and we picked up our intensity. We didn't let them get many 3-pointers off in the second half."
Earlier in the night, Benet beat Sandburg 51-34 for third place. Nikki Bell scored 14 points for the Redwings. Benet (4-2) outscored Sandburg 23-5 in a decisive third quarter, breaking free from a 22-22 halftime tie. Danielle Canulli added 9 points.