WW South stops York
Wheaton Warrenville South coach Rob Kroehnke had bad memories of last year's 0-3 first weekend at Benet creeping in his head Friday, deja vu lurking.
Then his Tigers squashed that thought.
No. 6 WW South held No. 10 York scoreless for nearly six minutes in the fourth quarter, rallying for a 46-42 win at the Benet/Naperville North Tournament in Lisle.
WW South (10-1) bounced back from its first loss of the season to Benet on Thursday and can advance to next week's winners' bracket with a win over Geneva tonight.
"This is a tough pool over here, no doubt about it," Kroehnke said. "Hopefully we didn't use up all our energy tonight."
WW South surrendered a season-high 61 points Thursday, but its defense more resembled its swarming nature Friday especially late.
An Anna Bell Lansdowne 3-pointer with 6:14 left gave York (7-5) its last lead at 37-35, but Meghan Waldron answered with a runner in the lane.
Sierra Bisso gave WW South the lead for good with a high-arcing 3-pointer from the top of the key, and Maggie Dansdill turned a steal into a score and 42-37 lead. A baseline jumper by Kasey Gassensmith made it a 9-0 run.
The Tigers forced 29 turnovers 9 in the fourth quarter dialing up fullcourt pressure and Dansdill had 6 steals.
"We weren't going to let up in this game after last night," Dansdill said. "It was kind of crazy and we tried pressuring them so they would get all mixed up."
York dropped to 0-2 in the tournament, staring at a date with red-hot Benet tonight in the Redwings gym. Dukes coach Jason Reinecke knew what his team was getting into at the tournament, and could pull plenty of good from Friday.
Lansdowne scored a game-high 17 points for the Dukes.
"Our shots started falling tonight a little bit more than they did our last two games," Reinecke said, "but it's not going to get any easier tomorrow against Benet. One of the good things about this tournament is you get to see some pretty darn good teams. At the same time you'd like to have success and sneak one of these out."
Clean passes were hard to come by as both teams extended pressure. WW South led 16-9 early and 20-19 at half, but Megan Holmes scored 6 of her 8 points in the third quarter to spark the Dukes to a 33-31 lead heading into the fourth.
"They extended their pressure in the fourth quarter," Reinecke said, "and we did not do a good job handling it. Those are situations we have to work on."
Waldron had 10 points and 11 rebounds, Bisso 8 and Dansdill 7, as did Gassensmith despite battling foul trouble.
The Tigers have found the flow of their well-run motion offense mucked up in two games at Benet, an adjustment that comes to no surprise to their veteran coach.
"Like last night we had trouble making cuts offensively because they were very physical with us," Kroehnke said. "We have to keep the ball moving. I've seen a lot of standing and a lot of ball holding. When we move the ball, we look pretty good."