WW South survives, advances

When it comes to the IHSA girls basketball regional, Wheaton Warrenville South has a simple philosophy.

Survive and advance.

Tuesday night's 41-24 victory against Hinsdale South at the Class 4A Naperville North regional left no doubt that the Tigers had indeed survived and advanced.

Their reward is meeting No. 3 seed Benet in the regional final at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

The sixth-seeded Tigers took the lead for good at 7-6 late in the first quarter on a Kelly Langlas putback. It was part of a 12-0 run that put the Tigers ahead 15-6 early in the second quarter, which ended with WW South leading 20-11.

"Once again our defense set the tone," WW South coach Rob Kroehnke said. "We need to clean it up a little on the offensive end, but we came to play. The kids answered the bell. So, move on. That's the fun part about this, you get to move on."

The Tigers (22-6) got off to a good start in the third period, scoring the first 8 points before Uzo Okoro's three-point play cut the lead to 28-14 with 1:14 to go in the quarter.

The Hornets (15-11) struggled offensively throughout the game, making just 9 of 39 shots.

"You're not going to win many games with 24 points," Hinsdale South coach Jen Belmonte said. "I don't know. We were just cold. It wasn't a good night from the outside, and that zone defense they played just gave us trouble. It's a tough defense. It guards the inside, it guards the outside, and they did a great job at it.

"I've seen better shooting days, that's for sure."

WW South freshman Meghan Waldron led all scorers with 12 points, and junior Kasey Gassensmith added 9 points.

"She's starting to take control a little bit on the floor," Kroehnke said of Waldron. "There are times that she almost passes too much, she doesn't look to be a threat enough. Tonight I thought she did a better job of trying to take advantage of certain situations, taking the ball to the hole, making that nice pass. They're all playing well, they're all playing great defense, and that's going to be the key."

Okoro led the Hornets with 9 points.