Knights drop another heartbreaker to WSC leading Bulldogs

Never mind the Kaneland girls basketball team has just one win in the Western Sun Conference standings.

Batavia, which is undefeated in the conference, was just glad to escape Maple Park with a win.

After trailing most of the game, the Bulldogs came back in the final quarter and topped the Knights, 40-37, Tuesday.

Batavia (18-2, 10-0) did it using clutch free throws and had Natalie Tarter -- the only player on either side -- to reach double-digits in scoring with 11 points.

"We knew it was going to be tough coming (to Kaneland)," Batavia coach Tim DeBruycker said. "(Kaneland) has been playing really well lately. They played hard the whole time…we knew they would come ready to play. I'm just glad that we won this game. It was a tough road game for us."

Both teams struggled offensively entering the fourth quarter, when Kaneland led 25-22. The Knights led for all three quarters until the Bulldogs took their first lead of the game, 33-32, on a Tarter putback with 3:52 remaining.

The game was tied twice after that, but once Kelsey Oswald and Kara Lydon hit free throws with less than a minute and a half left in the game, the Bulldogs never trailed again.

Kaneland's Katie Hatch's free throw brought Batavia's lead down to 38-37 with 41.6 remaining, but Lydon and Tracy Ferguson both hit free throws that put the Bulldogs' lead at 40-37.

Seven of Batavia's 18 fourth-quarter points were from free throws.

"We got to the double-bonus pretty early…I told the girls that was from persistence," DeBruycker said. "We got them in foul trouble and kept attacking the basket and we said, (our shots) will go in eventually, and they did."

The Knights had a good-looking 3-pointer released before the buzzer, but the shot failed to go in as time expired. The loss dropped them to 6-13, 1-8.

"I thought we blew this one," Kaneland coach Ernie Colombe said. "We aren't going to beat any good teams playing the way we are playing…you can't put a good team like (Batavia) on the free throw line unless you are defending the basket. I'm sure we could have beaten some teams tonight, but you aren't going to beat Batavia, and that's who we are trying to beat now.

"We should have won this game. We had opportunities."