Girls basketball: Sophomores help Addison Trail seal victory against Schaumburg
Holding a 7-point lead with under two minutes left in Saturday's girls basketball matinee at Schaumburg, Addison Trail wrapped up its third straight win with a couple of sophomores scoring its final 7 points.
Arianna Hendrix hit her fourth 3-pointer of the game, drove for a 7-foot bank shot and Dasia Birmingham added a driving layup with 35 seconds left to close the scoring for the Blazers (5-13) in their 36-27 nonconference win.
“Those sophomores (only ones on the team) are slowly developing,” said Blazers fifth-year coach Cory Little, a former all-state guard for the Blazers who also played at Illinois-Chicago. “I'm liking their development and they come to practice ready to work every day.”
Senior Emma Caniglia worked hard in all aspects of the game, collecting 9 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals.
“Emma is tough,” Little said. “She has been a tough cookie since she was a freshman in flag football and now in basketball. And I think she may play softball again, too.”
The 27 points were the fewest the Blazers have given up in 18 games. Of their 13 losses, eight have been by 3 points or fewer.
“The girls are buying into defense, rotating for steals and trying to do things myself and my coaches have asked them to do,” said Little, whose team won its last two games in the Lisle tournament and now first of 2025. “Obviously we can still get better and have some work to do. But they are really accepting the concepts we want them to do.”
Hendrix finished with a game-high 14 points, 4 shy of her personal-high 18. She also tied her personal best of four 3-pointers in a game. Senior Maria Hernandez added 5 points and 5 rebounds for Addison Trail.
“I think we just needed to communicate as a team, encourage each other and run our plays correctly, which helped us execute on the floor,” said Hendrix, who also played volleyball last fall. “I feel like my shooting can help us win the game. I'm just here to help our team because we are like one big family. I just want to help my team and help us get better.”
Senior Taline's Abousamra's rebound and layup got the Saxons (5-10) on the scoreboard with 4:17 left in the opening quarter.
Junior Emma Grossman added a steal and layup to extend the lead to 4-0 with 3:17 left.
The Blazers scored their first points when Hendrix connected on a 3-pointer from the baseline to make it 4-3. Schaumburg went ahead 6-3 thanks to sophomore Martha White's driving layup before Hendrix hit another 3-pointer from the southwest corner of the floor to tie the game at 6-6 with 23 seconds left.
Addison Trail took its first lead of the game when Katelyn Ford rebounded a missed layup on the fastbreak and banked it home for an 8-6 lead with 6:30 left in the second quarter.
A free throw by sophomore Stayan Porter got Schaumburg back to within 8-7, but a bucket by Hernandez and another 3-pointer from the same corner by Hendrix made it 13-7 with 2:35 until half.
The half ended with 3-pointers by Saxons junior Christina Pietris and Caniglia had the Blazers leading 18-10 at halftime.
“We missed a lot of layups in the first half and that kind of did us in,” said Saxons assistant coach Pat Kramp. “Toward the end our defense kind of picked up a little bit and got us back into the game. The girls executed the plays. We just have to make the finishing plays. The effort was there. We just have to make more shots.”
Addison Trail led 25-18 after three quarters after enjoying their biggest lead at 25-14 when Caniglia zipped a nice pass inside to Ford, who converted a 10-footer in the lane.
But the Saxons got a pair of 8-foot buckets from junior Kaya Pekala to trim the deficit to 7 heading into the final period.
Pekala and Grossman led the Saxons with 6 points apiece.
“I thought Emma Grossman played really hard and definitely dfio a good job getting the ball to the basket,” Kramp said. “Taline Abousamra is always rock solid for us in the middle. She does a great job with rebounding and kind of controlling all that stuff. Those two definitely head and shoulders helped us out today.”