Jordan Carlquist, Hersey down St. Viator

Senior leadership can mean a lot to a team.

Hersey's Jordan Carlquist, one of the Huskies' captains, was the only senior on either starting five Monday night at the Hersey vs. St. Viator girls basketball game in Arlington Heights.

Carlquist stepped up with a big game as the visiting Huskies defeated the Lions 66-52, and the clutch performance by the senior came as no surprise to coach Mary Fendley.

"She's always been a very solid player," said Fendley. "Jordan has hit shots consistently for us all year and her ballhandling has been great, but lately she's stepped it up as a captain and a leader as well. She's an important piece to our puzzle right now."

Carlquist was outstanding on both ends of the court, scoring 14 points, while teammates Mary Kate Fahey (22 points) and Mary McGrath (16 points) played stellar games as well.

Both Fahey and McGrath are juniors, and as a matter of fact there are only two other seniors on the Hersey roster - Claire Stollfuss and Jessie Carlquist, Jordan's twin sister.

"Jordan has been as consistent as anyone, especially with her leadership," added Fendley, "and honestly Jessie has done a really good job this year too."

For her part, Jordan Carlquist said that it's a total team effort for the Huskies this season in all areas.

"We've all taken a leadership role this year, even the younger players," said Carlquist. "We kind of had an unusual start time today (6 p.m.) and it's finals week - but we all looked forward to tonight's game. We pushed the ball like we said we were going to and passed the ball really well."

St. Viator fell way behind early, but rallied with a strong second-half effort.

"It was nice to see that the girls kept battling," said Lions coach Jason Raymond. "We're at the point in the season where we're struggling a little bit on the defensive end, and that's an area we're looking to improve on - but I'm happy the kids kept playing.

"We're a young team. We've got to take a lesson from games like this and keep working hard. We're looking to be playing our best basketball in February."

Hersey led by double digits after only a few minutes were gone in the game, and kept extending the advantage, leading by 24 at one point in the third period.

But Viator mounted a comeback and when Aubrey Horbach hit 2 free throws with 3:46 remaining - following three fourth-quarter 3-pointers from teammate Joy Bergstrom - the Lions trailed only 57-46.

Then Hersey scored 5 consecutive points to extend the lead, and the Huskies played keep-away in the final 2 minutes to secure the win.

Bergstrom of the Lions finished with a game high 25 points, Horbach added 10, teammate Nora Ahram scored 9 points while Viator's Brooke Davis posted a terrific effort on the boards with a game-high 11 rebounds.

Freshman Katy Eidle pitched in with 11 points for Hersey.

"I'm happy with our effort on offense," said Fendley, "but I feel like on defense we can improve our communications a little. They (Viator) hit some nice shots late and made a good run, but we responded at the end with our ballhandling and came away with the win.

"The kids work really hard during finals week. The thought tonight (about the 6 p.m. start) was to get the game in early and give them a little bit of an earlier night."