Dundee-Crown bounces back with win
One of the big keys to putting a tough loss in the rear view mirror is bouncing back strong in the next game.
Dundee-Crown’s girls basketball team did just that Saturday night.
Senior standout Ali Sanders scored a game-high 22 points and the Chargers got off to a quick start in beating Crystal Lake South 45-31 in Fox Valley Conference Valley Division action at D-C.
The win, coupled with Huntley’s 46-35 upset of Cary-Grove, puts the Chargers back into a tie for first place in the Valley, a three-way deadlock that now includes Huntley and defending division champ Cary-Grove.
“It’s disappointing having a loss like we did to Cary-Grove,” said Sanders of the Chargers’ 51-31 setback in Cary earlier in the week. “Our focus tonight was to come back and show everyone we’re still in it and we’re still going to fight for the conference championship and that Cary-Grove was just an off night.”
The Chargers, who fell behind Cary-Grove 8-0 and never recovered, made sure that wasn’t going to happen Saturday against the Gators (8-12, 2-4). D-C (12-7, 5-1) jumped out to a 6-0 lead and never trailed in the game. The Chargers led 13-5 by the end of the first quarter, 24-13 at halftime and 35-23 at the end of three quarters.
“Our goal tonight was that we wanted to have the lead after the end of the first quarter,” said D-C coach Michelle Russell. “We also wanted to make sure we played four hard quarters. You have to keep that mentality that you have to play the whole game hard. We didn’t want to be the ones playing catchup tonight.”
The Chargers led by as many as 17 in the third quarter and still held a 16-point lead at 35-19 after a basket by Maddie Cavallaro with 1:09 left in the quarter.
But the Gators never gave up and went on a 9-0 run to draw within 7 at 35-28 after senior Stephanie Melone buried a 3-pointer with 6:22 to play in the game. The would be as close as South would get, though, as Sanders spun through the lane for a basket with 5:44 to play, a bucket that started the Chargers on a 9-0 spurt that ended with a Jilliam Weichmann basket in the lane with 2:25 to go that made it a 44-28 game.
“We had a lot better ball movement tonight and a lot more inside shots,” said Sanders of D-C’s offense.
Senior Diamond Williams added 9 points and 14 rebounds for the Chargers, who were 15 of 39 shooting and outrebounded the Gators 34-28. Junior Carina Madoni led CL South with 6 points. Stephanie Oros, Melone and Kayla Peterson added 5 each for the Gators, who made just 9 of 38 field goal attempts.
“We’re still young,” said South coach Kyle McCaughn. “We’re two-thirds of the way through the season and we’re still struggling with that confidence that ‘this shot is going in.’ We’re getting decent looks, we’re just not finishing. Dundee-Crown played very physical tonight; they might be the most physical team we’ve seen all season. It took us a while to adjust to that.
“There were a lot of good things we did tonight that we can continue to improve on. These kids don’t stop fighting.”