St. Charles E. knows test coming
St. Charles East’s girls basketball team expected to be much improved this season following an 11-18 record last year, and Saturday night’s 13-point win at Batavia pushed the Saints over .500 at 4-3.
Lori Drumtra’s team can find out how far they have come Tuesday night when they host defending Upstate Eight Conference River Division champion Geneva (6-0, 1-0).
While nobody enjoys a moral victory — some would say there’s no such thing — even playing the Vikings to a 10-point game would mark progress after three blowout losses a year ago including an 82-45 defeat in the regional semifinals. The Vikings also defeated the Saints twice by lopsided margins in the regular season including once when they held a 43-11 halftime lead and the other contest doubling St. Charles East’s final score at 66-33.
“They are by far the team to beat,” Drumtra said. “I don’t know if anyone has come close to them yet. It will be a good evaluation because they just took us to town last year. We are a year older, a year wiser, we’ve got a few more things to put out there so we’ll see how it works.”
The Saints definitely have experience on their side. While Ashley Santos is the only returning starter from that regional game for Geneva, the Saints bring back their starting backcourt Amanda Hilton and Paige Jordan plus Morgan Vyzral.
Those three combined for 50 of St. Charles East’s 61 points Saturday at Batavia — 21, 18 and 11, respectively.
“When we get the three of them in double digits most games we are going to win,” Drumtra said. “They all need to score in order for us to be successful.”
Drumtra also is looking for consistency. In taking a 34-18 halftime lead over Batavia, the Saints looked like they could play with anyone. But there were stretches in the second half St. Charles East struggled at each end of the court before clicking again late to put the game away.
“It will take four full quarters to play against a team like Geneva,” Drumtra said. “You can’t have a down quarter against a team like that and expect to come out on top.”
Hilton is only a sophomore but already with a year of experience playing point guard against Geneva’s pressure.
“We have to stay mentally prepared and not let them get in our heads and come out thinking that they didn’t beat us last year and play our game and that it is any team,” Hilton said. “We’re really excited already. We’re getting ready and going to practice really hard and play our best on Tuesday and see what happens. We need to share the ball again, make our layups, take our jump shots.”
Hilton smiled with the thought of not having to play against last year’s All-Area captain and fellow point guard Kat Yelle, who through six games at Ohio University is already the team’s leader in minutes played while averaging 5 points and 3 assists.
But Hilton also knows Geneva has a new cast of talented guards. Rachel Hinchman has gone from a key bench player last year to the team’s second-leading scorer. Sophomores Michaela Loebel and Morgan Seberger have played a big part in Geneva’s 6-0 start.
“She’s a great player,” Hilton said of Yelle. “It will definitely be different not playing her, but they have another really good point guard so we’ll see how that goes.”