St. Charles East routs South Elgin

St. Charles East girls basketball coach Lori Drumtra was concerned Friday night as the Saints were playing their first game in six days.

There was no need to worry.

The Saints used two bigs runs to cruise to a 65-34 Upstate Eight Conference victory over host South Elgin.

"I was a little bit nervous about the team being rusty," Drumtra said. "I don't think we were. We came out and were anxious to play."

STC East (7-4, 4-0) led by 1, 10-9, with 2 minutes remaining in the first quarter. The Saints then went on a 13-0 run over the next 5 1/2 minutes of play to open up a 23-9 lead. Lexi Baltes had 5 points and Jaime Rust added 4 during the run.

The Storm (4-7, 1-3) fought back to within 6, 25-19, with 3:07 remaining in the first half thanks to a 10-2 run. That's as close as South Elgin would get.

The Saints, who have now won five straight games, scored 30 of the next 34 points stretching into the first minute of the fourth quarter to take a 55-23 advantage.

"We did some conditioning. We kept running," East senior guard Steph Roan said of the layoff. "We scrimmaged. We had some guys come in (to scrimmage). Guys are more aggressive. I don't think (the layoff) was a big factor."

South Elgin did not make a field goal in the third quarter, scoring just 2 points on Kelsey Prince's free throws.

"Nothing went right," Storm coach Tim Prendergast said. "Poor fundamentals. Lack of execution. Couldn't stop them. Nobody played well. It's embarrassing and it's humiliating."

Becca Smith scored the Storm's first 7 points, but scored only 2 more the rest of the game as the Saints' 1-3-1 zone frustrated South Elgin. Sarah Havemann added 8 points for the Storm. Alyssa Krause had 10 rebounds to go with 4 points.

Roan and Baltes each had 14 points to lead the Saints, who shot 53 percent (26 for 49). Kala Sigona and Danielle Jordan each added 7.

"I think the difference was we really pushed the ball up the floor," Drumtra said. "I thought we could push the pace a little bit and that would work in our favor. I think we got some easy baskets."