Benet survives vs. Naperville Central

Benet is a better shooting team than it's shown early this season.

Sidney Prasse and the Redwings proved it Saturday.

Prasse's long 3-pointer with 27 seconds left capped a comeback from 10 down in the final four-plus minutes, as No. 6 Benet stormed back to beat No. 8 Naperville Central 42-38 at the Naperville Central/Benet Tip-Off Tournament in Naperville.

"We are a very good shooting team. We have not proved it yet," Benet coach Peter Paul said. "Today at the end they proved it."

Prasse hit two 3-pointers and Madeline Eilers two in the last four minutes and change. Prasse had missed 14 of her first 16 shot attempts, but she followed an Eilers 3 with a 3 of her own to make it 36-32 after being down 36-26 with 4:48 remaining.

An Eilers 3 pulled Benet (4-2) within 38-37 with 1:10 left, and at the other end Naperville Central's Emma Donahue was whistled for traveling, a call disputed by Redhawks coach Andy Nussbaum.

Prasse made the play hurt, coming off a screen to drill a long go-ahead 3-pointer from the wing.

"Our shooting was off today," said Prasse, who scored 15 points, "but that's how you know you're a good team. When it comes down to it you just need to make those clutch shots."

Naperville Central had one last chance to win it, but had a layup roll out in the final seconds.

Nussbaum vehemently protested the call on Donahue with a minute left that he felt should have sent his best foul shooter to the line.

"You should have had the best free-throw shooter in the county at the line," Nussbaum said, "and instead they get the ball. But it shouldn't have come down to that play."

Indeed, the Redhawks (3-3) appeared in control, scoring the first 6 points of the fourth quarter to surge ahead 36-26. Donahue scored 20 points and Jill D'Amico 7. But the Redhawks got a little passive with the lead, and Benet pressured them into 6 fourth-quarter turnovers.

"We tried to run some time off the clock with 5-6 minutes left," Nussbaum said, "and didn't get another basket the rest of the way. I'll take responsibility for that. Benet was in panic mode and in doing so played extremely physical defense and got some steals that led to baskets."

Part of Benet's offensive struggles could be attributed to playing almost the entire game without junior point guard Christen Prasse. Prasse took an inadvertant finger nail to the eye on a drive in the game's opening minutes and didn't return. Paul said she was headed to the hospital with what was believed to be a scratched cornea.

"Losing Christen hurts," older sister Sidney Prasse said. "She is our point guard."

Sophomore backup Eden Olson and Eilers both scored 6 points for the Redwings.

Both teams came in 3-2, both suffering surprise season-opening losses a week prior and both blown out by tournament champion Bartlett. The action wasn't pretty throughout the first half, Naperville Central taking a 15-14 lead into the break.

"We're a better team than that and (Naperville Central) is a better team than that," Paul said. "It was a low-scoring game and you can't really say it was because of good defense, because it wasn't. It's going to come for us. Hopefully tonight was a sign of good things to come."