Lisle comes back to win in overtime

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how you win, just that you walk off the court with a smile.

Considering how Lisle walked off the court at halftime against Wheaton Academy with only 8 points to its credit after a woeful shooting performance, Lions first-year coach Dan Murray loved the 34-30 overtime victory.

“Yes, for the mere fact that we were getting good looks,” Murray said about believing the Lions. “We talked about it at half. It was just a matter of knocking down some jump shots.”

A little pressure doesn’t hurt either.

The Lions forced Warriors point guard Allison Witt, who had her way dribbling in the first half, to give the ball up in the backcourt, leading to some steals and layups, kickstarting a 9-1 Lions run.

“I thought that really gave the girls some confidence,” Murray said.

“Our spacing in the second half was not very good,” Wheaton coach Beth Mitchell said. “I feel like we beat ourselves because we gave up too many boards and you can’t win basketball games when you give up that many offensive boards and can’t block out.”

Darian Payne had 9 rebounds for Lisle (4-2) and Tara Sarb 8, leading to second-chance points. Shelby Kretman led the Lions with 13 points with 7 coming in the pivotal third period.

“I had a couple bad games and that (quarter) really helped boost my confidence,” the junior forward said.

Kretman and Nicole Urban combined to score Lisle’s 7 overtime points for a team that looked completely different from one half to the next.

“We’re in a situation where we’re showing improvement every time out,” Murray said. “There’s a myriad of things we need to work on, but from a coaching perspective what’s so exciting is we’re pulling out some of these victories against some very good programs and you can see the things we can still get better at.”

Sarah Drury led the Warriors (2-3) with 10 points, while Renatta Gorski had 4 points and 9 rebounds, but Wheaton Academy, which already had questions to answer with five new starters, has more after losing a lead.

“It’s still early,” Mitchell said. “Obviously, we have a lot of things to work on. I don’t think one game defines your season. We’re going to go back and work on some fundamentals like boxing out and figure out how when you have a 10-point lead you don’t lose a game in overtime.”