Naperville Central bounces back, stops Bartlett

Andy Nussbaum and his Naperville Central girls basketball team were smiling again Tuesday night.

Less than 24 hours after suffering their first loss of the season to Johnsburg, the Redhawks bounced back with a solid 61-54 win over Bartlett at the 27th Annual Charger Classic at Dundee-Crown.

"It was nice to bounce back," Nussbaum said. "We played so much better today. (Johnsburg) is very good but we didn't play our best basketball (Monday)."

And while Tuesday may not have been the Redhawks' best basketball, it certainly was good enough to hold off a Bartlett team that lost for the second day in a row after winning five straight. And the Redhawks did so down one starter as senior Catherine Tanck sat the game out with a knee injury she sustained in the Johnsburg game. Nussbaum said Tanck will see a doctor Thursday.

Naperville Central (13-1) will take on St. Charles North at 5 p.m. today for fifth place, while Bartlett (9-6) meets Fremd at 3:30 p.m. for seventh place.

Junior Emma Ondik led Naperville Central with a game-high 23 points, including making 6 of 9 free throws in the fourth quarter.

"(Bartlett) has good players and it was hard to get a big lead on them," Ondik said. "Every time we got a run they came back.

"It was a tough loss (Monday) and we lost one of our starters so we had to adjust our game plan and come out stronger from the start and I think we did a good job of that."

The Redhakws jumped out to an 18-12 lead after one quarter, something Bartlett coach Denise Sarna has seen quite enough of.

"We've had to battle first-half deficits in most of our games this year and it's getting old," Sarna said. "The same thing happened to us (Monday against New Trier)."

The Hawks did bounce back from the deficit, and even had three leads in the second quarter, but Naperville Central ended the half with a 7-0 run to take a 33-27 lead into the break.

The Hawks came back and scored the first 6 points of the third quarter, but an 11-0 spurt gave the Redhawks a 44-33 advantage after a 3-pointer by senior Claire Fleming (13 points) with 3:22 left in the third.

Bartlett would close to within 4, 58-54, on a Kristin Conniff 3-pointer with 33 seconds to play in the game but that's as close as the Hawks could get.

"We've not been very consistent all year long," said Sarna, whose team also lost to Naperville Central 69-66 in overtime at Thanksgiving time. "We wanted to come here and play good teams but it's time for us to start winning games against good teams. It's not good enough anymore to just play them close. We have to get over the hump. Maybe (today)."

Junior standout Jacki Gulczynski, who was being watched by a coach from Creighton, led Bartlett with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Conniff and Nicole Beck added 9 points each for the Hawks.

Sophomore center Emma Donahue added 13 points and 13 rebounds for Naperville Central, which also got a steady game from sophomore guard Jill D'Amico, who started in Tanck's place.

"Jill did a nice job," Nussbaum said. "She makes us a different team. I was real pleased with everybody today. I was pleased with our poise. We didn't show that kind of poise (Monday) night."