Girls basketball: O’Sullivan leads St. Charles East over Batavia in battle of DuKane unbeatens
Senior Sofia O’Sullivan wanted a bit of revenge for St. Charles East.
After losing to Batavia in the sectional semifinals the last season, O’Sullivan knew that a victory over them Wednesday night would be an excellent feeling.
So with the Saints leading by four points over the Bulldogs heading into the fourth quarter, O’Sullivan knew what she needed to do in order to get revenge.
“I knew that we had to keep the energy up in that fourth quarter,” O’Sullivan said. “We started to lose it a little bit in the second quarter, so I’m glad that we were able to come back as a team as strong as we did.”
The Depauw commit put up eight of her game-high 15 points in the fourth quarter to put the finishing touches on the Saints' 43-37 victory over the Bulldogs.
“She was all-around for us,” Saints coach Katie Claussner said. “She was getting 3s, she was getting blocks and rebounds, she was just doing everything. When she has confidence in herself, she just does what she does best and ball out.”
O’Sullivan’s point onslaught helped the Saints take a 39-31 lead in the game, which was their largest margin in the contest. She also added a pair of steals in the fourth quarter, along with some key blocks in the paint.
“I just came into the game with a lot of energy, and I think we just played really well as a team,” O’Sullivan said. “We stayed in it and moved around a lot on defense and always came back after a bad play.”
Claussner said she wanted St. Charles East (13-4 overall, 5-0 DuKane Conference) to play a tough defensive game. The plan ultimately worked, as the Bulldogs were held to their second-lowest scoring total of the season, with their 33 points against Benet back on Nov. 29 being the lowest.
“We told them in the locker room that the reason we won this game was because our defense was tenacious the whole time,” Claussner said. “We preach every day about being aggressive because if we can get steals, we’re going to get wide open lay-ups because of how quick we are. That’s what we tried to do in this game, and it worked.”
Batavia (12-5, 4-1) took a tough blow early into the contest when Sam Jansey took an elbow to the face that took her out of the game. Despite losing one of their starters, head coach Kevin Jensen said he was happy with how his girls played in the physical contest.
“There were some execution pieces we could have done a little better, but I felt like our girls just played so dang hard, and at the end of the day we’ll take that,” Jensen said. “We were down one of our shooters, but every one stepped up and played as hard as they could.”
The Bulldogs struggled to get on the board early in the contest, being held off the board for the first five minutes of the game. But they did manage to bring the game back to a one-possession contest for the entire middle portion of the game thanks to the efforts of seniors Hallie Crane and Natalie Warner, who each finished with 13 points in the contest.
“Early on, we just felt like we didn’t play well and couldn’t throw it in the ocean until the last two possessions of the half,” Jensen said. “But after that, it was a one-possession game, so we knew it was going to be a back-and-forth contest that came down to the wire. There’s some tough kiddos there, and I’m very proud of them.”