St. Charles East's inside-outside duo sinks Batavia
Kara Schnier provided the bulk of the inside scoring while Lexi Baltes added offensive production from the outside to lift St. Charles East's girls basketball team to a 54-43 nonconference victory over host Batavia Tuesday night.
Schnier, a 5-foot-11 forward, scored a game-high 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field and 6-of-7 accuracy at the free-throw line, while Baltes, a 5-7 guard, canned three 3-pointers as part of her 17 points.
Senior forward/center Kala Sigona contributed 9 points, 3 blocked shots and 3 steals for the Saints (14-9), who scored the game's first 12 points and led 14-4 after one quarter.
"I thought Kara Schnier had a great game," said Saints coach Lori Drumtra. "She has definitely been more offensive-minded lately.
"I sat down with both her and Kala (Sigona) and talked about needing the inside game. We aren't going to go anywhere without an inside game. If the other team knows that you don't (have one), it puts so much pressure on you.
"Tonight, we really had a nice inside-outside (game). Lexi had 17 points and Kara had 18 - that's perfect."
Schnier and Sigona each had 6 points during the Saints' furious first-quarter start that featured 6 layups, 5 steals and 7-of-10 shooting from the floor. The inside duo finished with 27 points, 9 rebounds, 4 steals, 4 assists and 4 blocked shots.
"We've been coming out strong - our problem has been sustaining it," said Drumtra. "We didn't win the fourth quarter (Batavia outscored St. Charles East 18-11) but we won the other three quarters. If you can do that, you're going to win your share of games."
Capitalizing on 13 first-half Bulldog turnovers, the Saints extended their lead to as many as 16 points in the second quarter - thanks to 3-pointers from Danielle Jordan, Baltes and Steph Roan.
St. Charles East led 29-15 at halftime.
"I thought we were very precise in the first half," said Drumtra. "We had a nice high-low game and really good execution especially against the zone (defense)."
Schnier, who had 12 second-half points and faced a challenge playing against 3 former AAU teammates (Bulls Elite), helped stretch the Saints' lead to 20 at 54-34 with 2:15 remaining.
"There's a little added incentive - I'm not going to lie," said Schnier. "When you're playing against people you know, you want to play your best."
Sara Fruendt and Maddie Sychta tallied 17 and 10 points, respectively, for the Bulldogs (11-10), who had their 4-game winning streak snapped.
"We turned the ball over too much in the first quarter and missed our layups," said Batavia coach Tim DeBruycker.
"You can't spot them a 10-point lead that early in the quarter. After that, I thought we did some counter-punching but every time we did that, they'd come down and hand it right back to us.
"We couldn't quite get over that hump to give them enough of a scare."