Rosary 59, St. Francis 46
The St. Francis girls basketball team scored the first 7 points of their game against Rosary Friday.
Not liking what he just saw, Rosary coach Dave Beebe called a timeout.
What resulted after that was a 22-point run by the Royals, who beat the Spartans 59-46 in Suburban Catholic Conference action in Aurora.
"We weren't really focused," said Rosary senior Faith Jones, who scored 8 of her team-high 16 points in the first quarter. "It was bad. We were like, 'OK, we have to get this together.' When we came out of the timeout, we jumped on them."
The Spartans scored 7 points in a span of a little under a minute and a half before Beebe's timeout. Colleen Van Bogaert's free throws started the 22-point run. Jones' basket at the 6:03 mark of the second quarter capped it.
"(St. Francis) didn't do anything we weren't ready for," Beebe said. "It was nice we responded, but there were just too many lapses in the game."
"The kids came out with fire and they were excited," St. Francis coach Leslie Dehn added. "Then all of the sudden, we turned over the ball a lot. It was tough to fight back."
Maggie O'Toole's bucket with 5:59 left in the first half ended the drought. She led all players with 18 points.
Still, the Royals had the 22-9 advantage and built off that for the rest of the half. They led 37-26 at halftime.
The Royals led by as much as 17 twice in the fourth quarter. St. Francis, however, made one last run at Rosary by going on an 8-0 run after that.
The Spartans came as close as 52-44 after a Kelly Reinke 3-pointer with 3:04 remaining in the game, but the Royals finished by going on an 8-2 run, led by three different players.
"The kids definitely knew they were in it," Dehn said. "We kept trading baskets with them, that was the problem."
Reinke finished with 11 points and 7 rebounds for the Spartans, who dropped to 10-13, 2-10.
Aside from Jones (and her 7 steals), Victoria Alvarez finished with 13 points, 9 steals and 5 rebounds for the Royals, who improved to 18-5 overall, 10-2 in the SCC.