Maine West's 'D' does it

Colleen Vana wasn't about to miss Maine West's big girls basketball rivalry game with Maine South Tuesday night.

So there was the 5-foot-6 junior point guard on the floor, directing the Warriors with a fever and no voice due to illness.

"Oh my God," said senior teammate Brittany Begrowicz. "I can't read lips. It was pretty difficult. We tried using hand signals."

Vana may have been speechless but the Warriors (10-2) made their point loud and clear in Park Ridge:

They can play defense.

The Daily Herald's No. 8-ranked team grabbed a 36-25 triumph over Maine South, limiting the Hawks to 2 points in the third quarter.

"They run the match-up zone like no one else," said Hawks coach Mark Smith, whose club is 9-4. "It stymied us at times and we got in some foul trouble (Karen Solari and Jackie Rieger fouled out).

"And we certainly didn't play our best basketball. Obviously we're not real pleased with how we played but we have a lot of respect for the Maine West program."

It was West's first win over South in Begrowicz's four seasons.

"Finally," said the three-time all-area player after playing her first full game of the season. She has been slowly working her way back from ACL surgery in July.

Senior Mary Kusner, who scored a game-high 17 points with 7 rebounds and 3 blocked shots, was 0-for-2 against South the last two years.

"I was so nervous before the game" Kusner said. "What a big relief. It's my senior year and I'm so glad we got the win.

"We knew we had to get the ball inside because they're smaller than us. Even though we had a height advantage, they were still tough."

A nice pass from Erin Baumstark led to a layup by Begrowicz (8 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists) for a 7-3 West lead after one quarter.

The game was tied at 13-13 at half but West took control with an 8-0 run to start the third quarter.

Kusner's putback, a 3-pointer by Vana (8 points, 2 assists), a free throw by Samantha Acosta and 6-footer by Kusner off a beautiful feed from Begrowicz made it 21-13.

"I thought we did a pretty good job defensively stopping what they do," said Maine West coach Derril Kipp. "We did a great job on their perimeter shooting.

"With Colleen ill and Brittany going a whole game for the first time, we wanted to slow the game down and get the ball inside with our height advantage."

The Hawks had three 3-pointers for 9 of their 25 points.

"I was looking for Ashley Tomzik (former Hawk sharpshooter now playing for University of Illinois-Chicago) to come out of the stands and hit about five 3s on us," Kipp joked. "She had about 25 points the last two times we played them.

"Give Maine South credit. They are a real solid team and you have to stay with them the whole game or they will come back."