Crystal Lake South downs Dundee-Crown
With the calendar flipping over to December the conference seasons in high school basketball swing into full gear this week and the Crystal Lake South girls team is hoping to compete for the Fox Valley Conference Valley Division crown.
It will be a tough road with favorite Huntley standing in the way, but the Gators got off to a good start with a hard-fought 52-40 road win at Dundee-Crown on Wednesday night.
Senior Chanel Fanter led the way with a double-double, scoring a team-high 17 points to go with 10 rebounds. Junior Annika Sevcik added 12 points for CL South.
The game went back and forth with the lead exchanging hands several times before the Gators pulled ahead for good late in the third quarter and then pulled away with a 10-0 run to close out the game.
"We played here in the Thanksgiving tournament and had a chance to see Dundee-Crown play a few times," South coach Mark Mucha said. "We knew they were going to be a tough, physical team and they are hard to match up with defensively because they can score inside and outside. We had to battle for everything. It was a good win for us. One of our goals is to compete in the conference. Huntley is the team to beat, but I think we match up pretty well with everyone else. This was a good start."
The Gators (4-3, 1-0) trailed 24-20 early in the third quarter, but turned the tables with an aggressive attacking offense. Sevcik broke a 30-30 tie with a putback basket in the closing minute of the third quarter to put South up for good 32-30.
The Gators led just 42-40 with 3 minutes left in the game before going on a 10-0 run to put it away. Fanter started the run with a 3-point play. She followed that up with a pair of free throws after being fouled taking the ball hard to the basket. Lauren Schoen added a pair of free throws down the stretch to help seal the win. The Gators shot 10-of-16 from the line in the game.
"We just kept being aggressive to get to the line," Fanter said. "I thought we showed a lot of patience on offense. It's definitely nice to start off the conference season with a win. We are hoping it carries over and we can compete."
Melissa Barker did everything she could do to keep the Chargers in the game. She had a team-high 17 points, including four 3-pointers. Her 3 early in the third quarter gave D-C its biggest lead of the game at 24-20. She also hit a couple 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to keep the Chargers within 2 until late.
However, the Chargers (1-6, 0-1) struggled to score consistently all night, shooting just 16-of-58 (28 percent) from the field. D-C missed on its last 7 shots of the game.
"We had some great moments," D-C coach Sarah Miller said. "Melissa made some big shots, but we need to be more consistent. That's been the story for us so far this year. We wanted to be more aggressive going to the basket, but give (South) credit - they did a good job with their zone of pushing us out away from the basket."
Allison Michalski added 10 points for the Chargers. Maddie Tripp had a team-high 9 rebounds.