Burlington Central gets the message, rolls by Prospect

With Burlington Central trailing Prospect 4-0 just 3 minutes into the game on Tuesday, Rockets' girls basketball coach Mark Smith delivered a little message to his players. After a timeout, Smith sat all 5 starters.

Message received. The Rockets' second unit provided a spark, as Smith had hoped, with Chaise Maraccini scoring the Rockets' first 4 points. And when the starters returned they did so with a vengeance. Central reeled off a 16-2 run, fueled by a pair of 3-pointers each from Sam Pryor and Shelby Holt, to go up by double digits.

The Rockets continued to pull away from there and wound up with a 62-43 victory in the 33rd Annual Dundee-Crown Charger Classic.

Pryor finished with 22 points, including 5 3-pointers. Holt added 12 points and Kayla Ross 10 for Central (10-1), which will play Naperville Central at 2 p.m. Wednesday for the consolation championship.

"We came out a little slow and I put the juniors in," Smith said. "I thought they did a pretty good job. Then the starting five realized what we're trying to accomplish. Sometimes you've got to do that (send a message) and I thought they responded well. If they play with that energy all the time, we'll be OK, but I thought we were a little flat to start the game."

"We just had to redeem ourselves," said Pryor. "We did come out a little slow, but the juniors and those who came in did a great job getting the tempo back up for us."

Prospect won the tournament last year, but the Knights were hit hard by graduation and this year's version struggled to keep up with the Rockets' relentless defensive pressure.

Nikki Matters scored 15 points and Emily Frasco added 10 for the Knights (8-8).

"We were doing things well," said Prospect coach Gabrielle Lovin, "and then we couldn't handle all that pressure."

The Knights trailed just 36-30 late in the third quarter, but Central scored the final 11 points of the quarter. When Pryor opened the fourth quarter with a 3-pointer, the Rockets led 50-30. They pushed the lead to as many as 23 in the final period before both coaches emptied their benches.

The Rockets' defense gave the Knights fits all afternoon, forcing 28 turnovers.

"I thought our intensity and our pressure defense got to them, and they made some mistakes," said Smith.