Aurora Christian remains unbeaten, ends Timothy Christian win streak
Anna Griffin thought Aurora Christian played its best team basketball of the season down the stretch Saturday afternoon at Timothy Christian.
That was good timing. It was the first time the Eagles needed to be at their best.
Aurora Christian overcame a 12-point second-quarter deficit, then held off a Timothy Christian rally to defeat the Trojans 44-41 in a Metro Suburban Conference Red Division game in Elmhurst. That ended the Trojans' winning streak at seven games.
"Man, it was exciting," Eagles junior Anna Griffin said. "Always having good competition is the best thing. In the beginning they knew how to play us and they just stepped on our throats and kept going. But then we had to come back knowing that we had to go out of here undefeated."
Timothy Christian (11-4, 7-1) was the first team to finish within single digits of Aurora Christian (12-0, 5-0), which defeated Latin by 14 points in its next closest game.
"This was the first time having to actually finish a game. I thought they reacted really well, to be honest with you," said Aurora Christian coach Burney Wilkie, whose team has a much tougher schedule in January.
The Trojans appreciated the competition also despite being a little worn down from an overtime victory against Walther Christian on Friday night.
"Despite the outcome any time you have competition like that, we were telling the kids, you find out what you're made of," Trojans coach Jill Groenewold said. "A 3-point loss, we'll take that. Not that we don't want to be on the other side of it, but we're playing a good level of basketball right now. We've had two good games right in a row."
Griffin led the Eagles' comeback. After a scoreless first quarter, she tallied 11 points in the second as the Eagles cut that 12-point deficit to 23-19 at halftime.
"Coach always told us, like, Timothy Christian is a really good team, so we're going to have to really bring it up," Griffin said. "And I think we took them too soft a little bit. But after halftime we came back and even in the second quarter, we just knew we had to be aggressive and come back as a team."
The Eagles didn't just wipe out that 12-point deficit, they built a double-digit lead of their own when sophomore Lexi Lamanna's 3-pointer with 4:30 to play made the score 41-31. Then it was the Trojans' turn to come back.
Hannah Schuringa scored, then Sureya Alex hit an off-balance runner going out of bounds while being fouled. Freshman post Grace Roland scored, then another Schuringa bucket made it 41-39 with 45 seconds to go.
Griffin made 3 of 4 free throws the rest of the way and had an important blocked shot to seal the game. She finished with 20 points, 14 rebounds, 3 blocked shots and 3 assists.
"She's the real deal," Groenewold said.
Lamanna scored 8 points and sophomore Thaya Luse 7 for the Eagles.
Schuringa led Timothy with 15 points, Alex scored 10 and Roland finished with 9 points, 6 rebounds and 5 blocked shots despite battling foul trouble.