St. Edward outmuscles St. Francis
The most surprising statistic out of Friday night’s girls basketball game between St. Francis and St. Edward was that the Spartans won the rebounding battle.
But the Green Wave seemed to grab every key rebound. Alex Lee had 14 rebounds and St. Edward had 16 offensive rebounds as the Green Wave beat St. Francis, 54-42, in a Suburban Christian Blue contest in Elgin.
“(Lee) owned the boards tonight on both ends of the floor,” St. Edward coach Michelle Dawson said. “Just a tremendous rebounding effort from her.”
St. Francis (1-4, 0-2) had 42 rebounds. St. Edward (8-3, 2-2) finished with 40. But the Spartans turned the ball over 18 times and shot just 29 percent (17 of 59).
“(St. Edward) has a couple of big players. We’re a little undersized,” Spartans coach Mike Phillips said. “We have to figure out how to play a little better post defense.”
Lee finished with 14 points, all coming in the paint, and 6 coming directly off offensive rebounds. Callie Johnson added 6 rebounds for the Green Wave.
Lexi Riccolo grabbed 8 rebounds to lead St. Francis. Aly Germanos added 7.
“We knew that they lost their big girls,” Lee said. “We knew they were mostly a shooting team. We had to get out on defense, work really hard and rebound.”
St. Francis led 12-11 after the first quarter. Johnson gave the Green Wave its first lead with a layup 55 seconds into the second quarter. The Spartans regained the lead on a Germano basket 20 seconds later.
An offensive rebound and putback from Johnson sparked an 8-1 run over a 2-minute span to take a 21-15 lead. St. Edward never trailed again.
St. Francis got within 3, 29-26, with 5:23 left in the third quarter after back-to-back 3-pointers from Alyssa Fernandez. The Green Wave answered with an 8-0 run and led 39-29 going into the fourth quarter.
The Spartans cut the deficit to 6, 41-35, with 5 minutes remaining, but two baskets from Lee and a steal and layup from Johnson made it a 12-point game again, 47-35.
“We’ve got a really young team and that’s probably the best game we’ve played even though we didn’t win the game,” Phillips said. “We just needed a couple more shots to fall.”
Riccolo led the Spartans, who only have one senior on their roster, with 13 points. Fernandez finished with 11, including hitting three 3-pointers. Germanos and Kate Slattery each had 8.
Madeline Kerr had 11 points, 9 in the second half, for the Green Wave. Katherine VonAhnen, who also had 3 offensive rebounds, added 9 points.