Kaneland's rally falls short
What Metea Valley junior guard Bria Walker didn't know certainly didn't hurt her.
With her Mustangs having lost nearly all of a 25-point lead against Kaneland in the opening game of the Oswego East Winter Classic Tuesday, Walker stepped back and drained the biggest shot of the game.
Walker's 23-foot 3-pointer ended a remarkable Kaneland comeback from 44-19 behind to within 50-45 with 4:30 left in the game. Walker's 3 steadied the Mustangs as they regained control to close the game on a 12-1 run for a 62-46 victory.
Metea Valley (5-7) will play No. 2 seed Andrew at noon Wednesday in the second round while Kaneland (8-3) faces Plainfield North at 9 a.m.
A 20-2 run by Kaneland to end the third quarter followed by another surge early in the fourth had whittled the 25-point deficit to 5 until Walker's long 3.
"I didn't actually realize that, but I am glad we stepped it up," said Walker, who led all scorers with 19 points. "We stopped playing defense and that hurt us. The 3 helped us to keep going."
The Mustangs used their size advantage to build leads of 18-10 after one quarter and 36-19 at halftime. Six-foot-2 Lori Obendorf (15 points, 14 rebounds) and 5-11 Amira Turner (12 points, 10 rebounds) both finished with double-doubles.
Those two led Metea to a 35-22 advantage on the glass. Turner also had 4 of the team's 13 steals as the Mustangs forced 26 turnovers.
"The game came down to two things," Kaneland coach Ernie Colombe said. "We didn't rebound the way we wanted to and turnovers. We had some unforced turnovers we have to clean up."
When Walker started the third quarter with a layup and jumper, then Anna Petersen followed with 4 points of her own, the Mustangs had their biggest lead.
A jumper by Kaneland guard Sarah Grams stopped the bleeding. Even when Ashley Prost followed with a 15-footer and Kelly Evers made a hook shot in the lane for six straight points Kaneland was still down 44-25.
But the Knights kept battling, and a long 3-pointer from Ally O'Herron to beat the third-quarter buzzer brought Kaneland within 46-39. Down 50-39 in the fourth, the Knights again scored 6 straight, the final bucket from Marina Schaefer before Walker's 3 changed the momentum back to Metea.
"We tried to come back with a lot of energy," said Prost, who led Kaneland with 14 points. "It's not fun being behind and it was a little discouraging but mainly we were thinking about what we could do to fix it. We felt a lot of it was our mistakes."
Evers joined Prost in double figures for Kaneland with 10 points. Eight different Knights scored.
"We definitely want to build on the third quarter," Colombe said. "We fought back and we expect the girls to fight back. That's their personality. That was a good team we played and you can't have that many mistakes early on and you can't put yourself in a hole like that."
West Chicago 72, Aurora Christian 50: Claire Monroe couldn't have picked a more fitting way to join the 1,000-point club.
The West Chicago senior drained a 3-pointer midway through the third quarter of the Wildcats' 72-50 win over Aurora Christian Tuesday at the Oswego East Winter Classic. West Chicago coach Kim Wallner called timeout and the public address announcer congratulated Monroe.
"I said that on the bench that it is kind of appropriate because that has been her best weapon," said Wallner, adding Monroe also probably has the school record for 3s.
Monroe became just the third West Chicago player to score 1,000 points. She joined all-time leading scorer Melissa Olsen (1,166 points) and Claire's sister Kelsey Monroe (1,164) who just graduated college and had teased her younger sister about the milestone.
"Last game she texted me and said five years ago today I scored my 1,000th point so she kind of rubs it in my face a little but I still got it," said Claire Monroe with a big smile. "Hopefully I can break her scoring record so I can laugh at her too."
Monroe finished with a game-high 20 points. She scored 8 of them in a game-opening 12-1 run as West Chicago built a 22-8 lead after the first quarter and led comfortably the rest of the game.
The Wildcats hit 9 of 16 shots from the field in the first quarter and didn't miss 50 percent by much for the game (26 of 54) while also making 15 of 20 free throws.
No. 3 seed West Chicago (7-4) advances to the second round against Plainfield Central at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. Aurora Christian (6-7) will play East Aurora at 10:30 a.m.
Aurora Christian coach Jerry Tokars was hoping for a bit better defense while crediting West Chicago for some hot shooting.
"We knew they had some shooters," Tokars said. "I thought we defended them pretty well. Even the ones we contested they dropped them."
The Eagles also had a pair of strong individual efforts from junior Mackenzie Bollinger and sophomore Alyssa Andersen.
Bollinger hustled her way to 7 steals and 10 rebounds while making 5 of 6 free throws and scoring 17 points. Andersen "had probably one of her best varsity games," according to Tokars in scoring 16 points.
"We have some slashers, we have some drivers," Tokars said. "We're still learning the finer points of that but we showed some strides. We're going to try for 3-1 (at the tourney)."
John Lemon