New season, another milestone for Streamwood's Rosner
Girls basketball season is under way for the Streamwood Sabres and Crystal Lake South Gators.
The Sabres defeated the Gators 42-38 Wednesday night in the opening game of the Thanksgiving tournament at Dundee-Crown. It was a tight game through the first quarter, but Streamwood started expanding its lead in the second; and would lead by 10 at the half. The Sabres would eventually bring their lead up to 16, thanks to some big shots by junior Jessica Cerda.
"Cerda got hot," said Streamwood head coach George Rosner, who recorded his 350th career victory with the win. "She started out very cold (in the first quarter), but I told her when I took her out that it was her cold quarter, so go back in. She found a rhythm there and started hitting it."
The Gators gave up a total of 30 shots in the first half, which was a big reason Streamwood got its 16-point lead, according to Gators head coach Kyle McCaughn.
"It's not that we were doing things wrong, we just weren't doing things as well as we can," said McCaughn. "In the first half (Streamwood) had 30 shots, which is way too many. You can't give a team 60 shots in a game and expect to win."
Cerda ended the night with 13 points, while sophomore Hanna McGlone put up 14 points and 11 rebounds for the Sabres. For the Gators, junior Lauren Del Vecchio finished with 12 points on the night while sophomore Sarah Mickow notched 9 points and 10 rebounds.
The Gators would fight their way back in the second half, coming back from the 16-point deficit to get within 6 points and only giving up 16 shots to Streamwood, but they missed some key free throws down the stretch to hurt their chances, according to McCaughn.
"If we could have made more free-throws down the stretch, it's a tighter game," he said. "It would give us some momentum going into the end, but we just missed too many free throws down the stretch."
The Sabres' Amanda Patterson made consecutive free-throws to give Streamwood a 42-35 lead with about a minute left in the game. Del Vecchio put up a shot to get the Gators within 4 points with 1.6 seconds left on the clock, but the Sabres would defend until the clock ran out and would get the 42-38 victory.
Loyola 37, Warren 31: Hopes haven't been this sky-high for Warren's girls basketball team heading into a season since sky-high Sarah Boothe patrolled the paint.
In their season opener Wednesday night, the Blue Devils fell short.
Petite point-guard short.
Holding Warren without a basket for an eight-minute stretch during the first half, and then pitching a third-quarter shutout, visiting Loyola captured a 37-31 win in the season opener for both teams as part of the New Trier holiday tournament.
"A lot of people have doubted us in past years," said senior guard Lexi Leneau, one of three four-year varsity players for Warren along with Division I recruits Amanda Barger (Youngstown State) and Jessica Prince (Wisconsin-Milwaukee). The trio arrived at Warren the same year (2008) that current Stanford pivot Boothe graduated.
"This year they have their standards set really high for us," Leneau continued. "So we're like, 'We have to be this good. We have to be this good,' when we should really just play to our strengths and not try to play to please the people sitting in the stands."
Warren coach John Stanczykiewicz said he knew his team was nervous before the start of the game when several players noticed their palms were sweaty.
The Blue Devils opened the game by hitting 4 of 5 three-point attempts (two apiece by Leneau and sophomore Cassie Christie) and led 12-2. Leneau's pull-up 18-footer from the corner had the hosts up 14-3 with 2:45 left in the opening quarter.
But Warren didn't score again until the 6-foot-3 Prince finished a feed into the post from Barger with 2:28 to go before halftime, stopping a 13-0 run by the Ramblers.
The two squads went into halftime tied 18-18.
Loyola senior K.C. Stralka opened the third quarter by hitting a jumper and rolling in a layup, and the Ramblers outscored Warren 10-0. The Blue Devils missed all 11 of their shots in the quarter and turned the ball over four times against man-to-man pressure.
"I thought we did a really good job defensively," Loyola coach Jeremy Schoenecker said. "I thought that was the key to the game."
Warren finally scored its first basket of the second half when Alyssa Phillips finished a Prince pass under the basket 1:29 into the fourth.
Joe Aguilar