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Prospect runs out of time against Loyola

After its biggest win of the season Friday night over state-ranked Hersey, the Prospect girls basketball team was back on the floor less than 14 hours later.

Making their first appearance in the 20th annual McDonald's Shootout at Willowbrook High School, the Knights fell behind 7-0 to Loyola.

But with 5-foot-10 junior Marissa Pettenuzzo scoring the next 6 points, the re-energized Knights got back into contention.

They contended all the way to end before Loyola prevailed with a 52-46 victory in Villa Park.

The Ramblers (12-10) built a 40-29 lead midway through the third quarter, but Prospect kept chipping away at the lead down to the wire.

The Knights (14-6) got to within 2 points when Lexi Glennon (9 points) made a steal and layup with 45 seconds left.

But Loyola (12-10) received 2 free throws apiece from Audrey Gaughan and Shaquira Scott (career-high 21 points) in the final 41.2 seconds to seal the verdict.

"Tommy Lasorda (former Dodgers manager) used to say whenever he lost a game that his team just ran out of time," said Knights coach Martha Kelly. "That's what happened to us. We just kind of ran out of time."

There was a time Prospect led 24-19, when Glennon produced her first steal and layup with 3:22 left in the first half.

But the Ramblers closed the second quarter with a 10-0 run to lead by 5 at the break.

They continued the momentum into the second half, extending their rally to make it a 21-5 run.

"That was huge," said Ramblers coach Jeremy Schoenecker about the big rally. "Any time you can close a quarter like that, it's great momentum."

Prospect closed the third quarter with a 7-0 run, getting layups from Rachel Hunt (11 points) and Glennon and a 3-pointer by Sarah Winas.

"We had a great game the night before," said Winans, who scored a team -high 13 points and was 8-for-8 at the free-throw line. "If anything, that gave us energy to come right back so soon. Unfortunately, we couldn't pull it out. Loyola played real well and they are fast. We had a great effort."

Kelly had no problem with her team's effort.

"The energy was where it need to be," Kelly said. "Loyola played a very nice game. They shot free throws well (10-for-11), they didn't make a lot of turnovers and they shot well (six 3-pointers). We don't want to make excuses."

Sarah Hunt added 7 points for Prospect.

"This was a good experience for us," Kelly said. "I told the girls we are here because this is to prepare for the regional and sectionals. It's like a state tournament atmosphere playing two games on back-to-back days."

The Ramblers lost to Fremd 42-39 on Monday and defeated St. Charles East in overtime Thursday.

"I thought we played just as hard as we did against Fremd, but we a little more composed this game," Scott said. "We wanted to run the floor like we did. Prospect's posts are really strong. We knew we had to double-team down low and not let them get a lot of shots."

"Obviously, we had to contain their size," Shoenecker said. "We tried to run different defenses. We went with a 2-3 zone early, then when they started hitting 3s, we switched to man-to-man and I thought we did well with that.

"Prospect and Fremd play a lot the same. They are both tough with the man-to-man defense and they move the ball well. And we know it was tough for Prospect having played a big conference game the night before. There could have been some fatigue. Who knows?"

Prospect knows it wanted to make no excuses.

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