Girls basketball: Another big game from Jones not enough in Naperville Central’s loss to Loyola
Clemson-bound Trinity Jones is such a great scorer that Loyola was happy to hold her to under 30 points Monday night at Naperville Central. The Ramblers were even happier their team effort led to a victory in the battle of ranked teams.
Jones scored a game-high 27 points and had 12 rebounds, but Loyola improved to 15-2 with an impressive 65-49 road win that snapped the Redhawks’ five-game winning streak.
The Ramblers’ defense keyed on slowing Jones and Erin Hackett, while the team’s balanced offense used scrappy rebounding to score several second-chance points. Juniors Maddie Locke and Emily Naraky each scored 20 points to pace the winners.
“I feel like when our defense started clicking and we got the steals and rebounds we felt like we had more time on offense and we could just flow as a team,” said Locke, who added 9 rebounds and 3 steals. “That was my first time ever playing against (Jones) so that was really cool.
“It was quite a challenge but I thought we did really well as a team. Believe it or not, that was our goal to keep her around 30. I was really proud of our team. They were ranked higher than us, so this win meant a lot to us.”
The shots didn’t fall as often as they normally do for Naperville Central (14-3), yet the home team had nice stretches including one in which they closed the gap to 40-37 on a Jones’ drive to the rim early in the second half. But the Ramblers closed out the third quarter with an 11-0 run that included 5 points from Locke and a trio of buckets from Naraky.
“We just stopped scoring,” Redhawks coach Andy Nussbaum said of his team’s third-quarter drought. “They had a good plan defensively and we just didn’t handle it very well. They do a nice job of playing as a team.”
Hackett, who became the school’s third-leading career scorer after reaching 1,678 career points in the Redhawks’ win over Maine South last week, was held to 2 points in the first half Monday before knocking down a pair of 3-pointers to finish the night with 8 points.
“We knew if we could hold Jones and Hackett down some, we were going to make the other three players have to beat us. We made Hackett and Jones really work … if you hold them to 35, you’re probably going to win the basketball game,” Ramblers coach Jeremy Schoenecker said.
“We say defense travels and defense wins championships. We won a state championship two years ago and that team really prided itself on defense. This team is probably a little more talented offensively, but we’ve got to get them to buy into that (tough defense) every night.”
Jones had 18 of her 27 points in the first half, which ended with Loyola on top 38-31. She was held to 2 points in the third quarter as the Ramblers took a 51-37 lead into the final quarter.
“They were more disciplined,” Jones said. “Their coach kind of knew what to do to attack us and obviously it worked tonight. But we didn’t really play our game tonight. We lacked on offense. We lacked on defense. We weren’t knocking down our shots. I wasn’t knocking down my shots personally. There’s really nothing you can do but get in the gym and work on it.”