Cary-Grove rolls over Dundee-Crown
If the Cary-Grove girls basketball team proved nothing else Wednesday night, the Trojans showed that they are not about to give up their throne without a fight.
And while Dundee-Crown put up a valiant battle for the first half of the Fox Valley Conference Valley Division showdown, the two-time defending champion Trojans came away with sole possession of first place in the division — still.
Junior Olivia Jakubicek battled through foul trouble to score a game-high 17 points and the Cary-Grove defense held the Chargers to their second lowest season scoring night of the season as the Trojans came way with a 51-31 win at Cary-Grove’s Elroy Fitzgerald Gymnasium, with the gym’s namesake in attendance.
“Everybody knows all the numbers and all that but we don’t really look at it that way,” said Cary-Grove coach Rod Saffert of maintaining the dominance his program has had in the Valley the past several seasons. “We played good defense again and that’s a credit to coach (Andy) Donaldson and the girls.”
The Trojans’ smothering full court trapping defense helped create 23 Dundee-Crown turnovers, eight of them in the first quarter when the Trojans jumped out to an 8-0 lead.
“You have to take care of the ball and we didn’t do that tonight,” said D-C coach Michelle Russell. “We just had way too many turnovers again.”
Jakubicek scored 6 points in the first quarter but with two fouls on her, Saffert chose to sit his leading scorer the entire second quarter. D-C kept the game close, trailing just 18-14 at halftime, but with Jakubicek back on the floor and scoring 11 points in the third quarter, the Trojans (11-5, 5-0) started pulling away.
“We like to come out strong and play our hardest ever game,” said Jakubicek, who added 8 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals. “In practice we focus most of the time on defense because defense is our first offense. We knew Dundee-Crown would some out strong and we definitely weren’t looking past them.”
The Chargers (11-7, 4-1) had closed the gap to 20-17 when senior Ali Sanders hit a 3-pointer with 6:43 left in the third quarter but the Trojans used a basket from Jakubicek and back-to-back buckets from junior Joslyn Nicholson to made it 26-17 just over a minute later. D-C never got closer than 7 the rest of the way. Leading 35-26 after three quarters, the Trojans went on a 12-0 run to open the fourth, taking an insurmountable 47-26 lead after a Sarah Kendeigh basket with 2:50 left in the game.
“We came out slow and our shots were flat to start both halves,” said Russell. “Their defensive pressure rushed us but we missed a lot of shots we should have made. We had the shots and we had the opportunities, the ball just didn’t go in.”
Sanders, playing sick, had 14 points to lead the Chargers and Diamond Williams added 11 points and 12 rebounds, but only four Dundee-Crown players scored in the game. D-C was just 11-for-41 shooting, while Cary-Grove was 23-for-43. Nicholson and Paige Lincicum each had 9 points for the Trojans as eight of their 10 players scored at least 2 points.
“That’s the plan,” Saffert said. “Every kid has to believe they can help the team and they all do. All 10 of them contributed tonight.”