St. Charles East goes inside to down Larkin
The message from St. Charles East coach Lori Drumtra to her girls basketball team at halftime on Tuesday night was very clear.
"I just felt if we got the ball inside it was going to be hard to stop us," Drumtra said. "I thought we were settling for too many outside shots in the first half. So we talked about working it around and reversing the ball until we got some good inside looks."
The Saints (3-7, 2-1) did just that in the second half as all 13 of their baskets in the final two quarters came from inside the paint. East opened a 10-point lead early in the fourth quarter and then held on for a 59-54 Upstate Eight River Division road win at Larkin.
Sophomore Sara Rosenfeldt led the Saints' second half surge, scoring 14 of her game-high 20 points to go with 8 rebounds. Kathleen Townsend added 10 points for East.
Townsend scored the first basket of the second half on a post up move to put East up for good 27-26. The Saints had trailed by as many as 6 points in the first half.
East went on an 11-4 run late in the third quarter and early in the fourth to open a 48-38 advantage. Rosenfeldt had 3 baskets and a free throw during the run.
"She has been like that for us all year," Drumtra said. "She works very hard and is so consistent. We ask her to do a lot. She has some nice moves in the post, but can also handle the ball real well. So we try to run almost every thing through her.'
The Saints had a decisive 24-16 rebounding edge in the second half.
"We were making sure we had eight feet in the paint on every shot that went up," Rosenfeldt said. "We know our inside game is one of our best qualities, so we tried to work the ball inside as much as we could. We did a lot better job of working the ball around in the second half."
Larkin (3-7, 2-2) rallied to pull to within 2 points with 52 seconds left in the game on a layup by Shawniece Douglas off a dish pass from a driving Marlee Kyles. The Saints responded with a pair of free throws from Rosenfeldt.
The Royals pulled to within 56-54 with 30 seconds left on a long jumper from Sarah El Rahmany. However, this time the Saints closed it out with a pair of free throws from Marissa Urso and another one from Samantha Munroe down the stretch.
Kyles had 17 points to lead the Royals. Douglas added 14 points.
"Once again we played well enough to stay in it," Larkin coach Steve Knapp said. "But we are still learning how to win these close games. We just needed to take better care of ball and make better decisions at the end of the game. We getting better every day but we are just not quite there yet."