Wheeling meets Prospect’s challenge
Falling behind 10-0 and giving up 19 points to Prospect in the first quarter did not sit well with the Wheeling girls basketball players on Saturday afternoon at the Jean Walker Field House.
“We’re a defensive team so that definitely lit a fire under them,” said Wildcats coach Julisssa Hernandez.
“It was pretty crazy,” said senior standout Kellie Kuzmanic. “We thought, ‘Oh my gosh, we need to pick it up.’ ”
The Wildcats’ sure did, exploding for 26 points in the final quarter and coming away with a 60-45 triumph in the Mid-Suburban East.
Prospect (14-10, 6-2) remains 1 game behind Rolling Meadows (21-4, 7-1) with two games to play. The two teams meet in Mt. Prospect on Tuesday night.
Right in the middle of Wheeling’s captivating final eight minutes was Kuzmanic, who finished with a game-high 24 points, 5-of-5 free throws, 6 rebounds, 4 steals and 1 blocked shot.
Two free throws by Adriane Falagario pulled Prospect to within 44-41 of Wheeling with four minutes left when Kuzmanic went to work.
The 5-foot-10 senior guard-forward converted her second 3-pointer from the top of the key to give Wheeling it largest lead to that point at 47-41.
She then came up with a steal in the Knights’ backcourt before hitting another 3-pointer from left of the key with 2:43 left.
That gave Wheeling (7-16, 3-5) a 50-41 lead from which Prospect could never recover.
“You’ve got to hand it to Kellie,” said Prospect coach Martha Kelly. “Those were two big 3-pointers.”
The only Wildcat to score the rest of the game was Jessi Zuba (12 points, 4 rebounds, 2 steals).
The 5-10 junior forward wrapped things up for Wheeling’s biggest win of the season by converting eight straight free throws in the final 1:07.
“I’m coming back from an injury earlier in the season (ankle injury) so it’s nice to be getting playing time,” Zuba said. “It feels good because I hadn’t been able to contribute as much as I would have liked. I feel like I helped out my team this game.”
Also helping out the Wildcats in a big way were junior Brie Majkowski (9 points, 5 rebounds, 1 assist) and freshman Deanna Kuzmanic (10 assists, 6 rebounds, 4 points).
“We got good minutes from Brie and Jessi,” Hernandez said.” A couple of weeks ago they started coming off the bench and they are improving every game.”
Hailey Dammeier, Hannah Dobrowski, Leah Malsom and Dee Hanna also contributed points in Wheeling’s second highest-scoring game in an MSL East game this season. Their highest came against Prospect in a 75-70 overtime loss in the first meeting.
Prospect received a fine all-around game from senior center Maura Benson, who had 10 points, 10 rebounds, 8 blocked shots and 3 steals.
Freshman Taylor Will led the Knights with 13 points while junior Michele Molini added 9, all in the first quarter.
Molini’s back-to-back 3-pointers gave Prospect a 6-0 lead.
Jessica Petrovski’s driving layup, Will’s steal and layup and a driving bank shot in the lane by Christina Brucci (7 points) gave Prospect a 12-0 lead with 3:15 left in the first quarter.
Dammeier’s driving layup with 2:48 left started the Wildcats on an 18-7 run to get back into the game.
“Wheeling shot well and we did not,” Kelly said. “We missed layups and free throws (4-of-12). We’ve just got to stay positive and focus on our next game on Tuesday.”
Kellie Kuzmanic scored 17 of her points in the second, 12 in the final quarter.
“We just came out to play in the second half,” she said “Everything changed around.”
Especially when Kuzmanic hit her back-to-back 3-pointers.