Batavia can't slow down South Elgin in regional opener
In order to advance Monday against favored South Elgin at the Class 4A St. Charles North regional, Batavia needed to try to slow Becca Smith while getting all their top scorers to step up and match the Storm star.
Neither happened, partly because of Smith's brilliance, and partly because of a horrific injury to one of Batavia's key players.
Smith's 26 points led the No. 4 seeded Storm to a 60-42 win over the No. 5 Bulldogs, who played the final three-plus quarters without senior shooting guard Liz Barnes.
South Elgin (11-16) will play No. 1 seed Geneva (27-0) at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the semifinals. Batavia's season ends at 12-13.
While Smith was unstoppable offensively, she and her coach both pointed to the team's defense as the deciding factor. Batavia shot just 35 percent from the field and turned the ball over 5 times in the second quarter when the Storm took control.
"Defense is going to win games. That's what we did today," Smith said. "I think we really stepped up on the defensive end. That's where our offense was generated from."
Batavia led briefly early on, the last time at 6-4. South Elgin senior forward Alyssa Krause's jumper tied the game at 6.
On the ensuing possession, Barnes fell to the floor in excruciating pain with what her coach called either a dislocated right knee or kneecap. Play stopped with 2:58 remaining in the first quarter while Batavia coach Tim DeBruycker, family and trainers tried to comfort Barnes until the paramedics arrived.
It took about 15 minutes for the paramedics to stabilize Barnes' right leg and get her on a stretcher to the ambulance and the hospital. After about a 30-minute delay play resumed, and the 6-6 game at the time became 23-11 South Elgin halfway through the second quarter.
"It was very hard," Batavia senior Sara Fruendt said. "She's my best friend. To see someone you care about so much go down and her season is over and maybe her future, it was really hard. All of us care about her a lot."
During South Elgin's 17-5 run that opened up a double-digit lead it held almost the rest of the night, Smith scored 6 points and assisted on two other baskets against Batavia's 2-3 zone.
"We've been struggling all year against zone defenses and I thought we did a real good job tonight moving the ball and getting good looks," South Elgin coach Tom Prendergast said.
Batavia closed the half on a 6-2 spurt to pull within 25-17 with reserves Katie Baglieri, Hannah Schweigert and sophomore call-up Kaytlin St. Clair helping fill in for Barnes and Fruendt, who was out with two fouls.
South Elgin quickly extended the lead to 35-19 with a 10-2 burst to open the third quarter. The Storm led by at least 12 points the rest of the way.
Krause (12 points, 11 rebounds) and Dijon Smith (11 points, 7 rebounds) caused problems for Batavia inside. DeBruycker didn't use Barnes' injury as an excuse, instead lamenting the number of missed shots.
"Our execution was not good pretty much all night, before that (injury), after that," DeBruycker said. "We continued to get good looks that were not going down. Then on the defensive end we just weren't stopping dribble penetration. I thought Becca got into our zone too much distributing the ball well."
Junior Maddie Sychta led Batavia with 10 points and 9 rebounds. Fruendt and St. Clair added 8.
"I was really happy with the way we played defense tonight," Prendergast said. "I thought we took them out of some of the things they wanted to do. I thought that was the key to the game."
Geneva had its entire team at St. Charles North scouting Monday, and Smith is looking forward to the challenge Wednesday.
"They (Geneva) are a great team," Smith said. "It's a tall order. but we are going to do what we can to get a 'W.'"