Metea Valley upsets Andrew

Metea Valley did not bring an impressive record and a high seed into the Wolves Winter Classic at Oswego East this week.

But the Mustangs did come to play with some confidence. The unseeded Mustangs followed up Tuesday's solid 62-46 defeat of Kaneland by knocking off the tourney's second-seeded defending champion Andrew 41-29 on Wednesday afternoon. With the victory, 6-7 Metea Valley advances to the semifinals of the 16-team field against the winner of No. 3 West Chicago and Plainfield Central.

"Honestly, I think that we can play with a lot of the teams in this tournament. That's kind of the mindset that we've come in with this week," Mustangs coach Kris Kalivas said after her team's second win in as many days.

The Thunderbolts, who entered the game 8-2 on the year after beating Plainfield North in their tourney opener, jumped ahead 10-4 following a 3-pointer from Tiana Karopulos and an inside bucket from Nicole Botich. But the Mustangs tallied the final four points of the first quarter and then used a 14-5 second-quarter run to take a 22-15 lead at the break.

From there Metea Valley's defense took over and the Mustangs handled the T-Bolts' usually effective pressure defense more than suitably.

"Our defense played well but our offense did not," said Andrew coach Bobby Matz, whose team could really have used injured 6-foot-1 center Molly Franson on Wednesday. "This was a tough matchup for us. Metea played a nice game and they frustrated us a little and got in our heads at times. They handled our full-court pressure really well."

Kalivas credited Upstate Eight Conference foes with helping ready her team to attack pressure defenses.

"Playing against Neuqua and Bartlett we face a lot of pressure," she said. "We actually come to welcome it."

While the Mustangs defense was limiting Karopulos to a trio of 3-pointers and 11 total points on 3-for-23 shooting, Lori Obendorf continued to shine at the Wolves Classic and led all scorers with 16 points while adding 7 rebounds. In Tuesday's win she had 15 points and 10 boards.

"We knew coming in that they would be tough competition," Obendorf said. "But we knew that if we just played our game we could beat any team."

Junior guard Bria Walker followed up a 19-point game on Tuesday with 10 points against Andrew, including a clutch 3-pointer that extended the Mustangs' lead to seven points late in the first half. Anna Petersen and Amira Turner, meanwhile, helped frustrate Karopulos on the defensive end and also combined for 10 points and 17 rebounds for the Mustangs.