St. Viator 63, Riverside-Brookfield 34
If you're going to play one of your best games, you probably want to do it late in the season.
How about in the Season's End tourney?
Well, St. Viator's girls basketball team came up with a good one Tuesday night at Hersey's Ken Carter Gymnasium in Arlington Heights.
Getting a balanced scoring attack led by Susie Hohenadel (11 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals), Kelly Hendricks (10 points), Tori Callero (9 points, 5 rebounds), Colleen Nolan (8 points, 4 rebounds) and Jenny Muench (6 points), the Lions exploded in the second half en route to a 63-34 triumph over Riverside-Brookfield, which came into the game at 15-8.
St. Viator's 63 points were a season-high, topping their previous best from a 66-57 loss to Cary-Grove (20-3).
"Hands down, the best game we played all season," said Muench, who scored 4 points during a 17-3 in the third quarter. "It was great. We were so unselfish.
"Everyone made the extra pass. And we had such balanced scoring. We played this whole game like we had been playing maybe just one quarter in previous games."
The Lions (11-14) were nursing a 17-16 lead when they went on a 9-1 run to close out the first half with a 26-18 cushion.
St. Viator coach Paul Bjerkness played 14 girls, and 13 scored including Mandy Kompanowski, Alissa Bozza, Lauren Fabbri, Jamie Blenner, Christine Supergan, Mary Calov, Kelsey Floyd and Sarah Lakowske.
"I thought the girls played with a lot of energy," Bjerkness said. "And they were very unselfish finding the open person. They played hard and put a lot of pressure on the other team."
"I thought it was a collective effort. And a really good effort on defense."
Lions senior Danielle Volpi recently suffered a knee injury and is out for the season.
Hinsdale South 47, Hersey 42 (OT):ΠHinsdale South accomplished what no team had the last three years in the Season's End tourney.
A victory over Hersey.
The Hornets topped the three-time defending tourney champs 47-42 in overtime at the Ken Carter gymnasium in Arlington Heights.
"It's an honor to come up here and beat Hersey on its home floor," said longtime Hornets coach Brenda Whitesell. "They are well coached and a very scrappy team."
Hinsdale South (19-7) will play next Monday at Fenton High School for the championship of the tourney while Hersey (8-17) will compete in the second-place pool game.
The Huskies led most of the way until Joanna Giampoli (11 points, 14 rebounds, 3 blocked shots, 2 steals) hit an 8-foot bank shot put the Hornets ahead 31-29 with 2:16 left in the quarter.
Hinsdale South went up 38-31 early in the fourth period but Hersey rallied with a 9-0 run to take a 40-38 lead.
South freshman Jackie Alyinovich and senior Chloe Harris (13 points, 5 rebounds) each hit 1 of 2 free throws in the final 52 seconds to tie the game at 40 and send it to OT after Hersey missed a 3-pointer at the regulation buzzer.
A reverse layup by Jessica Carlson (11 points, 6 assists, 3 rebounds, 2 steals) gave the Hornets the quick lead in OT.
Carlson and Sam Schimmel each added a pair of free throws in the extra session and Harris had 1.
Senior Emma Kuhn's 12-footer from the baseline were only points for Hersey in the OT.
"Hersey did a nice job double teaming us on the post despite their lack of size," Whitesell said. "The key was playing containment defense because they are so fast and use their screens so well.
"We had to play basic man-to-man without much help defense because they had mismatches."
The Huskies were led by Kelly Rogowski's 11 points while Sarah Stoltzner added 8. Kuhns and Megan Rogowski each scored 7.
"It's kind of disappointing because we had chances; we juts didn't finish," Kelly Rogowski said. "I think they were taller than us at every position. We just didn't finish. Emma (Kuhns) did a good job keeping her girl out of the paint.
"They were a good team but we didn't capitalize on our chances."
Huskies coach Mary Fendley said a defensive breakdown in the third quarter cost her team.
"We were really successful with running our press for most of the game but for some reason we didn't run it in the third quarter," she said "We'd always have one player not in the right spot and that hurt. I thought Amanda Slove hustled like crazy on defense the whole game."