Rogowski, Hersey stop Prospect
A lot of words have been used to describe Megan Rogowski’s play, but perhaps the one attribute that she brings the most to Hersey is confidence.
It runs through the prospective star forward and spreads to her teammates.
They, in turn, step up their defense, set solid picks, crash the boards and do all the things that sometimes don’t show up in scorebooks for a team that moved to 20-5 overall and maintained its 7-0 stranglehold in the Mid-Suburban East on Tuesday night with a hard-fought 52-43 win at Prospect’s Jean Walker Field House.
The Huskies are two games in front of Buffalo Grove (11-12, 5-2) in the East with three to play.
“I thought our team defense was really good,” said Huskies coach Mary Fendley after her team pulled away from a 24-23 halftime lead by forcing 13 turnovers out of the Knights (11-11, 3-4) in the second half.
Hersey limited Prospect’s top scorer Sarah Winans to 10 points on 5-of-14 shooting, thanks mostly to Eileen Zydek’s effort.
“It’s keyed by hard work from Zy,” said Fendley, using her star forward’s nickname. “She is just the heart and soul of our defense.”
Flip that and it was hard to find any Knight who could put the defensive clamps on Rogowski, who finished with 34 points despite double-teams and a rotating line of defenders who she regularly shook off thanks to her quickness and her teammates’ constant screening.
“They’re great teammates that I trust,” said Rogowski, whose jump shot and overall game are as fluid as her postgame delivery.
Yet Hersey’s standout has no hesitation to give up the ball if someone else has a hot hand. With Jen Hall doing most of the ballhandling at the point, Rogowski got some offensive support from Maggie Hogen, who battled the much taller Sarah Hunt under the basket all night and threw in 8 points on a variety of putbacks and baby hooks.
A big run to open the second half, when Prospect committed 5 turnovers and had only 1 basket in its first 6 possessions, got Hersey rolling. When Prospect fought back on some nifty moves by Winans, Rogowski responded with perfect fourth-quarter shooting at the free throw line, with the support of hoops from Hogen and Stephanie Mueller.
“The biggest difference was we didn’t get enough offensive possessions,” said Prospect coach Martha Kelly, pointing out how turnovers hurt the Knights. Despite step-up efforts from Christina Brucci and Jessica Petrovski, both getting more minutes with Marissa Pettenuzzo (knee) injured, Prospect could never get closer than 5 on a Winans’ 3-point play in the second half once Hersey had pulled away.
“We didn’t get out and run,” said Winans, who, like her coach, believes Prospect can outplay its .500 record. “We’ve just got to focus. Maybe we were rushing too much.”
For Hersey, playing its fourth game in five days, fatigue never set in, even after a tough game to win the Season’s End tournament on Monday.
“We’re getting a well-earned day off of practice,” on Wednesday, said Fendley.
Maybe it doesn’t matter, though.
“When we’re good,” said Rogowski, eyeing more consistency, “we’re very good.”