WW South has fun with run and gun
One might have thought the Wheaton Warrenville South girls basketball players slipped into some track shoes in between the first and second quarter on Thursday night.
And it seemed like senior Kasey Gassensmith was wearing the super-fast ones.
Nursing a 1-point lead after the first eight minutes, the Tigers went on a fastbreak tear and produced a 20-3 run in the second quarter to grab a 35-15 advantage at the break.
They never looked back in recording a 55-40 triumph in a second-round game of the Schaumburg Thanksgiving tournament.
Gassensmith scored half of her game-high 18 points in that explosive second period when the Tigers outscored Schaumburg 25-6.
She scored 4 baskets on the back end of the Tigers’ fastbreak, twice getting nifty lead passes from sophomore Meghan Waldron, who finished with 14 points, 6 assists and 5 steals.
“That No. 34 (Gassensmith) did a great job,” said Saxons coach Ashley Berggren. “She was getting in front of everyone (on the fastbreak). I give her lot of credit.”
The Truman-State bound Gassenmsith gave credit to her teammates’ defense.
“It’s our defense,” she said. “That turns into our offense. We’re a fast team, so we can get the ball to whoever gets down there first or whoever’s open.”
“When they get out and go, it looks good,” said Wheaton Warrenville South coach Rob Kroehnke. “We’ve got a bunch of them who can run.”
Sophomore Maggie Dansdill added 10 points, 9 rebounds and 5 steals for the defending tourney champs, who are now 2-0.
Junior Sierra Bisso added 8 points, including a 3-pointer in the Tigers’ big second quarter.
“That was a nice run,” Kroehnke said. “We played good defense in the first quarter but our offense was not getting a lot in transition.
“We kept playing defense in that second quarter, and started getting good transition for easy buckets. The nice thing is that we were able to sustain it the rest of the game.
Schaumburg (1-1) never got closer than 13 points in the second half.
A 3-pointer by Amanda Kelly made it 43-30 but Bisso answered with her second 3-pointer and the Tigers led 46-30 after three quarters.
Gassensmith went long distance with her only 3-pointer for South’s first points in the final quarter.
“This is definitely a good start for us,” Gassensmith added. “Our defense just really kicked it up. We got stops and then we can get running. It can be anyone getting the basket on our break.”
Senior Krysta Watts helped start many of breaks with 8 rebounds.
Kelly led the Saxons with 16 points while freshman Jada Blackwell added 7 and senior Alyssa Saklak 4.
“Amanda is a competitor,” said Berggren about her junior point guard who hit 3 3-pointers. “She definitely has the ability to change the pace of a game.”
The Tigers were able to change this game with their second-quarter blitz.
“We needed to better transition defense and getting our posts to sprint,” said Berggren, who was able to go quite deep on her bench. “We have some younger players who we want to get experience. They will get more confidence and develop into quality players.”