Batavia's 15-0 start sinks Kaneland

The Batavia and Kaneland girls basketball teams have had their share of trouble winning games this season.

But the Bulldogs had no problems in Friday's Western Sun Conference contest against the Knights.

Batavia (6-8, 2-5) scored the game's first 15 points and cruised to a 43-16 victory.

"It was a good start, a good first quarter. It was nice to get some momentum at home," Batavia coach Tim DeBruycker said. "We haven't put too many points on the board lately. We had 25 and 22 in our last two games respectively."

Putting the ball in the hoop has plagued Batavia this season, but the Bulldogs exploded for 17 first-quarter points on Friday.

Freshman point guard Sami Villareal led the way, scoring all 7 of her points in the opening quarter.

"We knew it was important to get off to a good start," Villareal said. "We wanted to win and the shots we're falling good for us tonight."

Kaneland (4-13, 0-6), which was coming off a 68-25 loss to Geneva on Tuesday, was not able to counter the Bulldogs strong start.

The Knights missed all 10 of their field goal attempts in the first quarter and didn't end an 0-15 drought until Mallory Carlson's nifty left-handed hook shot with 2:40 remaining in the first half made it 24-3.

"They come out and shoot lights out and we looked intimidated from the start," Kaneland coach Ernie Colombe said. "I think when you get off to a bad start, the last two nights, we start to do too much individually."

Good accurate passing, unselfish play and a steady shooting night all paid dividends for a balanced Batavia attack. None of the Bulldogs were in double figures but 9 different players scored, including Sara Fruendt who came off the bench to lead the team with 9 points.

"We had everyone in the lineup contributing and that really helped because we've had such a tough time scoring," Fruendt said. "We know we're a talented team so it was nice to come out and score early and get comfortable."

Katie Baglieri, Kelsey Stone and Liz Barnes all contributed 6 points for the Bulldogs. Stone also led the team with 7 rebounds.

"We don't have a superstar that's going to put 20 points on the board every night," DeBruycker said. "Night in and night out we need 8 girls to score 6 points. If you can put up 48 points in a varsity game you'll win a lot."

Kaneland only had a single player, Mallory Carlson, with 6 points. The Knights only had 1 field goal in the first half and made just 6-of-33 field goal attempts for the game.

"It didn't really matter who we were going to. It was a lot of the same mistakes and there's a lot we need to improve on," Colombe said. "We have some talent, great kids across the board, but they've got to play better as a team."