St. Charles North claims 5th place at Dundee-Crown
Only one team is going home from a holiday basketball tournament with the first place trophy. The next best thing for the rest of the teams is to have something to build on and get some momentum heading into the second half of the season.
St. Charles North's girls team did just that on Wednesday with a 56-44 win over Hononegah in the fifth-place game of the 16-team field at the Dundee-Crown Charger Classic Christmas Tournament. The North Stars finished with a 3-1 record.
“We feel real good coming out of here at 3-1,” North coach Sean Masoncup said. “There are some great teams at this tournament. Teams we wouldn't usually see and a lot of different types of basketball. So to be able to come away with wins against Prospect and Resurrection, and this Hononegah team that was really tough and to have our only loss be against a ranked New Trier team is pretty satisfying and should get us prepared for what lies ahead the rest of the season.”
The North Stars (10-3) saved some of their best basketball for the end. North led by as many as 10 points in the first half, but Hononegah battled back to tie the score 38-38 in the final minute of the third quarter. However, North regained the lead for good when Claire Jakaitis cut along the baseline and took a dish pass from Kyla Heisel and scored a layup to put North ahead 40-38
North went on to outscore the Indians 16-6 in the final quarter to pull away. The North Stars hit 7 of 12 shots in the final quarter. Morgan Rosencrants had 6 points in the final quarter and finished with 10. Jakaitis also had a pair of buckets in the fourth quarter. Earlier in the third quarter Samantha Sample, who had 16 points, hit a couple of 3-pointers to help slow Hononegah's push to tie the game.
Jakaitis finished with a game-high 20 points and had 12 rebounds to help give the North Stars a 38-27 edge on the boards.
“It got a little scary for us when they tied it up,” Jakaitis said. “They were trying to slow us down with their zone all night, but when Sammy hit those 3s that kind of spread them out and gave us some openings.”
The North defense forced 6 turnovers in the pivotal fourth quarter and held Hononegah to just 13 of 49 (26 percent) shooting from the field in the game, including 6 of 26 (23 percent) from the 3-point arc.
We dug deep on defense,” Masoncup said. “We can play a lot of different ways so we are able to make adjustments. We knew they were too quick to play man so we just wanted to focus on stopping their shooters by getting out on them.”