Montini wallops St. Charles North
Whitney Holloway and Kiki Wilson only played together in short spurts last season.
Montini opponents won't be as fortunate this year.
Holloway scored 15 points with 6 assists and 5 steals, and Wilson had 11 points, 6 assists, 6 steals and 7 rebounds in the No. 1 Broncos' season-opening 61-26 win over St. Charles North on Saturday at the Geneva Invitational.
“Some people probably sit there and say, ‘What the heck have you been doing, Nichols, for three years not playing them together a lot,'” Montini coach Jason Nichols said, “but it worked out pretty good for us last year.
“They're going to cause a lot of people headaches. As long as they are smart and don't pick up dumb fouls, there will be a ton of 8-0, 10-0 bursts because of them.”
Wisconsin-Milwaukee recruit Wilson was Montini's sixth man last year, often subbing for Holloway. With both on the floor together now, and the presence of other quick guards like Kasey Reaber, Nikia Edom and freshman Sara Ross, the Broncos are extending pressure more.
Montini forced 19 turnovers in the first half alone. A 16-0 Broncos run turned a 12-12 tie into a 28-12 advantage. In a particularly blink-of-an-eye turn of events, Edom hit a pull-up jumper, Holloway stole the ball in the backcourt and scored and Wilson had a steal and feed to Holloway for a layup in less than 15 seconds.
“It's the first game so we're still getting used to playing together as a team,” Wilson said, “but overall I thought we did pretty good. We're a new team and a new style of playing basketball. We're a quick team and we use that speed to our advantage.”
Tess Fischer scored 7 points and Sydney Russell 6 for St. Charles North, which went scoreless the first 3:57 of the second quarter and trailed 40-17 at the half.
North Stars coach Colleen Brennan welcomed the challenge of facing the defending Class 3A champions to open the season.
“It's a good way to start the season; you learn a lot from it,” Brennan said. “We learned how to stay up and we continued to do some good things. They were sporadic at times because of the pressure. When you trap for four quarters, that's intense. But our girls kept it together and communicated and stayed positive.”
Whitney Adams added 10 points and 5 rebounds and Tianna Brown 6 points and 7 boards for Montini. The Broncos play Oswego on Tuesday and Lakes on Friday.
A potential showdown with No. 3 Geneva looms in next Saturday's championship game.
“This team is fast. We are so fast,” Nichols said. “Our pressure and speed and quickness obviously got us some distance, and we were able to work on some things. We just have to be smart with our pressure.”