St. Charles North has no problem with Larkin

On the cusp of tonight's game against St. Charles East, St. Charles North did not want to overlook Larkin.

But coach Colleen Brennan didn't want to overemphasize the Royals either.

"I didn't minimize them by any means, but I didn't maximize them either," Brennan said. "We talked about a weekend goal of going 2-0 and you have to go 1-0 before you can go 2-0."

The North Stars picked up a 54-13 Upstate Eight Conference girls basketball victory in Elgin, starting their weekend off on the right note. Senior point guard Kiley Hackbarth finished the game with 20 points, including scoring 9 in the final period.

Hackbarth added 6 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 assists in the victory. She also scored 5 points in the first quarter as North (14-7, 4-3) jumped out to a 20-2 lead in the first quarter. Larkin (0-14, 0-10) trailed 37-4 at halftime.

"We didn't want to look past this game at all," Hackbarth said. "We do have a big game coming up but we didn't want to look past (Larkin)."

Senior Jenna Bell scored all 9 of her points in the first quarter for the North Stars. She also finished with 4 steals as Larkin turned the ball over 13 times in the first quarter, compared to just 7 shot attempts. Sydney Russell (6 points) connected on a 3-pointer to put North up 14-2 with 2:03 left in the first quarter. Bell would score the final 6 points of the period sending the Royals into the second quarter trailing 20-2.

"We wanted to come out strong from the start and play all the way through four quarters," Bell said.

Using a variety of different lineups, the North Stars got contributions from Taylor Russell (5 points, 2 steals) and Kate Booe (4 points, 6 rebounds).

Despite the loss, Larkin was able to take some positives out of Friday's game. The Royals limited North to just 4 third-quarter points and forced the North Stars into 12 turnovers. Larkin forced 18 total second-half turnovers and limited North to 17 total points.

Abigail Alvarez recorded 6 steals in the game. Larkin also got 6 points from Corinne Wimmer, who scored 5 points in the fourth quarter.

North owned a 38-28 advantage on the glass, with Dana Sibley contributing a game-high 8 rebounds.

"There were some positive things," Royals' coach Alphonso Lott said. "We played solid defense. You can't keep a good team like that off of the boards.

After committing 22 turnovers of its own in the first half, Larkin cut its miscues to 14 in the second half.