Prince reigns; Warren rolls

Warren center Jessica Prince doesn’t like to worry ... or procrastinate.

She and her teammates like to get their work done early, so they can relax later.

Palatine matched Warren almost bucket for bucket in the second half on Tuesday. The Pirates were outscored by just 1 point after halftime.

But it was a tale of two halves.

And the first half belonged solely to Warren, which raced out to an 8-0 lead, boasted a 12-3 lead after the first quarter and a 23-8 lead at halftime. It all added up to a 44-28 Warren victory in the third round of Warren’s Blue Devil Classic holiday tournament.

The Blue Devils, who move to 7-6, earned a spot in the winner’s bracket for the final two days of the tournament.

“We try to get out on them early so that we don’t have to worry about that at the end,” said Prince, who scored a game-high 16 points and pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds. “I got some offensive rebounds today and just put them back up.”

Six of Prince’s 10 rebounds were on the offensive glass.

The Blue Devils also got production on the offensive end from senior guard Alexis Leneau, who finished with 12 points, including 2 3-pointers.

“Offensively, we didn’t force anything and we took advantage of Jessica inside and used our speed (with Leneau) outside,” Warren coach John Stanczykiewicz said. “Right now for us, it’s Jessica inside and Alexis has the hot hand shooting. They are certainly the focus offensively. But the nice thing is, as other teams have tried to take them away, we’ve had other people step up.”

Senior guard Amanda Barger added 9 points for Warren.

Meanwhile, Palatine put just one player in double-figures. McKenzie Wiedemann scored 10 points for the Pirates, who fall to 8-4. Teammate Nia Pappas just missed double-figures with 9 points.