Defensive pressure keys Geneva in opener
Sarah Meadows' reign began auspiciously enough Saturday afternoon in Geneva.
The first-year girls basketball coach for the Vikings had Ashley Santos' torrid start to thank, not to mention a defense as menacing as an army of ants at a honey-flavored picnic.
Santos converted her opening 4 shots from the field in spearheading an 11-point unanswered run, and senior teammate Rachel Hinchman had 6 of the Vikings' 22 steals in authoring a 62-40 victory over Antioch in the teams' season opener at the Geneva Thanksgiving Tournament.
Santos, the Vikings' do-it-all Marquette-bound guard-forward scored all 18 of her game-high points in the opening half, and Hinchman added 13 points, mainly off defensive-triggered fastbreak opportunities, to pace the Geneva victory.
"It was our first game of the year, and the excitement of that (was the difference in the quick start)," Santos said. "The adrenaline (of the season opener) that's how everything got really going for us."
Santos' pair of pull-up jumpers and equal number of scores in the paint as part of an 8-point personal run less than two minutes into the quarter enabled the Vikings to spurt to an 11-0 lead.
Antioch (0-1) answered with a 5-0 burst of its own, but Santos' final of her 6 first-quarter field goals followed by a Hinchman breakaway extended the Geneva lead to 19-6 after one quarter.
The Vikings (1-0) never let Antioch within single figures the rest of the game.
The swarming, full-court Geneva defense was the Sequoits' central villain.
"We knew it coming into the game that they were going to press us (full-court)," Antioch coach Tim Borries said. "We needed to slow the game down."
But the Vikings' defensive intensity had a negative as well: several cheap fouls in the high-risk press put Antioch in the bonus two minutes before the second quarter and the double-bonus three minutes into the second quarter.
"We're going to gamble a lot more (in the future)," Meadows said. "We play so fast that at times I think the whistle came a little too quick. We do have to learn from (early foul troubles), though. We can't have three starters with two fouls in the first quarter."
Michaela Loebel, the third Viking in double figures with 10 points, had back-to-back field goals to extend the Vikings' lead to 48-26 late in the third.
For the game Geneva shot 44 percent from the floor (27-for-61), and turnover-prone Antioch (12-for-35) was at 34 percent field-goal attempts on 26 fewer attempts.
"We liked to pressure them and make them uncomfortable," Hinchman said. "The (11-0 run to open the game) got us going from the start of the game."
Ten players scored in all for Geneva, which led 35-21 at the break.
Sami Pawlak had a game-high 10 rebounds to augment 7 points for Geneva.
IMSA/ACS Hoops HappeningTournament: Alyssa Henzel collected 19 points and 11 rebounds, leading Aurora Christian to a 53-37 victory over IMSA in the third place game.
Mackenzie Bollinger added 14 points and 6 steals for the Eagles and Emily Magee finished with 10 points.
Jeannine Schultz paced IMSA with 9 points.
Glenbard East Tournament: Nijeda Thomas hit a free throw with no time remaining to lift Oswego East to a 45-44 victory over Rosary.
Rosary (1-1) trailed 33-29 after the third quarter. Karly Tate led the Royals with 17 points while Madison Richmond knocked down five 3-pointers in a 15-point effort.