Big second half lifts South Elgin past St. Edward

Statistics don't always tell the complete story of a basketball game.

South Elgin's girls didn't shoot well, got soundly outrebounded, and had one of their worst quarters of the season Saturday afternoon, yet they came away with a win.

Senior Becca Smith went over the 1,800 point mark for her career with a game-high 27 points as the Storm came back from a 10-point halftime deficit to beat host St. Edward 59-47 in a nonconference game in Elgin.

"We took a deep breath at halftime and just said 'Hey, we're a good team. We just have to play good defense and keep shooting the ball and things will fall into place,' " said South Elgin coach Tim Prendergast, whose team snapped a 3-game losing streak.

There was plenty of reason for Prendergast and the Storm to stop and reset after Saturday's first 16 minutes. South Elgin (12-7) had taken a 19-16 lead after an energized first quarter but then couldn't find the bottom of the basket in any form in the second quarter, missing all 13 of its field goal attempts to fall behind 31-21 at halftime.

"The first quarter was great and the second quarter was awful," Prendergast said. "We're on a three-game losing streak and I started losing patience and the girls started getting frustrated. But we played really good in the second half, especially defensively."

And how. Smith, the Loyola signee who now has 1,807 career points, scored 16 of them in the second half, including hitting 6 of 7 free throws in the fourth quarter, and the South Elgin defense, led by Smith's 5 steals, helped create 20 St. Edward turnovers in the second half (30 for the game) as the Storm turned things around to come away with the win.

"That was a rough second quarter," Smith said. "But we came back in the second half and made up for it. I'm proud of my team for how we kept our composure and got this three-game losing streak over with. We pride ourselves on being a defensive team. In the first half we weren't playing too well but in the second half we played more as a team defensively."

It took nearly three minutes for either team to score in the third quarter, Smith breaking the ice with 5:06 left in the period to make it a 31-23 game. Katherine Von Ahnen hit a free throw for the Green Wave (13-5) at 4:48 and then a Smith 3-pointer at 4:34 started the Storm on an 8-0 run that brought the score to 32-31 after Smith scored the final points of the burst with 1:40 left. Callie Johnson scored five seconds later and Katie Swanson made 2 free throws early in the fourth quarter to give the Green Wave a 37-31 lead.

And that's when South Elgin exploded. The Storm, led by 2 3-pointers from senior Lania Robinson, scored the next 8 points and took a 39-37 lead on Robinson's 3 with 6:20 left in the game and never trailed again. St. Edward did tie the game at 39 and had it at 42-41 after a putback by Alex Lee with 3:27 left, but South Elgin was 14 of 16 from the free throw line down the stretch and the Storm made 6 of their 8 shots from the floor in the fourth quarter after going 13-for-45 in the first three quarters.

"Lania is a good shooter and we tell a kid like that to just keep shooting," said Prendergast of Robinson, who was just 2-for-7 in the game before hitting her back-to-back 3-pointers.

Sophomore Savanah Uveges added 12 points for South Elgin and Robinson had 10. Johnson led the Green Wave with 11 points. Swanson and Maddie Kerr added 10 each. St. Edward outrebounded the Storm 41-29, led by 10 from Lee and 7 from Johnson.

"Too many turnovers down the stretch," said St. Edward coach Michelle Dawson, whose team lost for the second straight time after coming into the weekend on a 7-game winning streak. "We were playing with so much intensity early, we just didn't have that same level in the second half. South Elgin put a lot of pressure on us and we didn't make good decisions. We got out of our normal style of play.

"We just have to use this as a learning experience, regroup, and see where we can go from here."

Both teams have a tough stretch ahead as South Elgin hosts once-beaten Waubonsie Valley Tuesday night and St. Edward hits the road for four straight games, including next Saturday night at two-time defending Class 3A state champion Montini.