Carmel stays hot in win over St. Viator

One day after defeating a solid 9-1 Rolling Meadows team at the Lake Zurich Exam Jamm, Carmel’s girls basketball team was back at it with another test on Wednesday in Arlington Heights.

It was another passing grade for coach Ben Berg’s girls from Mundelein who topped host St. Viator 54-31 to run their record to 7-4 and 2-1 in the East Suburban Catholic Conference.

“We knew that was a big win the night before,” said senior guard Ashley Schlabowske. “They were 9-1 and ranked ahead of us. But it gave us a lot of energy beating them. It was a good, hard-fought win in which we worked together and we knew we had to bring that same energy to this game because St. Viator is in our conference and they’re our rival.”

Schlabowske brought it from the get-go, converting 5 straight points which gave the Corsairs the lead for good at 10-5. The Wisconsin-Whitewater recruit went on to score a team-high 17 points while senior forward Keira Ackerson added 15. The duo scored all their team’s points in the first half except for a 3-pointer by sophomore Josie Hartman and a layup by senior Ana Gertsung (9 points).

“They (Schlabowske and Ackerson) put a lot of time in during the off-season to get better and they have,” said Berg. “Obviously we need them to score. But we had contributions from a lot of people. I thought Maron Bowes (4 points) played very well starting tonight with Maia Cordova out. She rebounded, scored a little bit, was very active and defended well.”

Tied 5-5, Carmel took the lead for good when Schlabowske hit a 14-foot shot inside the free-throw lane for a 7-5 lead.

She then fired home a 3-pointer from deep in the corner with 1:50 left for a 10-5 advantage.

Junior Kyli Ziebka’s drive and lean-in layup cut the deficit to 10-7 before Ackerson tossed home a 3-pointer from the left side to give the Corsairs a 13-7 lead after one period.

“We held strong there in that first quarter,” said Lions first-year coach and former Schaumburg basketball prep star Kyle Braheny. “We were really playing solid defense and it was a close game. Then they knocked down a couple of big shots late which carried over to the second quarter, and we dug ourselves a hole. We have to be a little more disciplined against the good teams. We have to find out who’s hurting us and be able to adjust.”

Back-to-back 3-pointers from Schlabowske and Hartman made it 19-9 when Braheny called a timeout with 5:45 left in the second quarter.

Back-to-back turnovers by Viator (3-8, 1-3) led to layups by Schlabowske and Gerstung in a span of 10 seconds to make it 23-9 with 3:59 left to half. Schlabowske’s third 3-pointer increased the lead to 26-9 with 2:57.

Maeve McClennan’s 14-floater in the lane ended the run to13-0 and made it 26-11 at intermission.

“We can’t let good teams go on runs like that,” Braheny said. “We’ve got to be able to stop them.”

Berg felt his team played hard coming off the win over Meadows.

“I thought we played hard tonight,” Berg added. “I don’t know if our legs were completely under us. I give them (Viator) credit. They stayed with things, especially in the third quarter.”

In that quarter, Saint Louis pledge Mia Bergstrom scored 10 of her game-high 19 points as Viator got back within 39-26 with 1:38 left.

“We know their program is pretty tough and we played them pretty tough,” said Bergstom, one of about a handful of Lions who have scored more than 1,000 points. “We’ll get back at it tomorrow, fix some things and get ready for our next game (at the Blenner Classic).”

Ziebka added 6 points with 8 rebounds and 2 assists for Viator. Teammates McClennan (2 assists), Kalin McCrea ( 2 rebounds) and Hannah Grossman (2 rebounds) each had one field goal

“We made a couple of adjustments at half and we got on a little run,” Braheny said. “I challenged them and said ‘let’s win the third quarter’ and we were winning it most of the way. The girls really play hard.There is no quit in this team we just have to come together.

“Carmel is a very good team. Every time we have a conference game you know it’s going to be against a top opponent. We’ve got to be more consistent and make less mistakes. If we do that we’ll be able to make these much better games.”

After Viator got to within 13, a driving 12-foot floater in the lane by Schalbowske and 2 free throws by Hartman helped the Corsairs pull away again.

“We were able to play a lot of girls tonight which is good,” Berg said. ”It was a good win for us. We need a little time to rest now.“