Without Johnson, Broncos still whip Marist

All it took for Jason Nichols to shed the coach speak and reveal his inner basketball fan was the mention of his Montini team with Michala Johnson.

"Imagine," Nichols said with a knowing half-grin.

With the Broncos' best player on the bench with a knee injury, Montini still blitzed Marist 76-50 in the season opener for both teams in Lombard.

"We just played," said Montini junior Alison Seberger, who scored a game-high 23 points. "It's different because we don't have Michala playing, but it's a good thing to know that we have other people to go to throughout the game besides Michala. We could be scary when she gets back."

Johnson suffered a stretched ACL in her left knee in July. She is practicing with the team at 75 percent but has not yet been cleared to play. That could come any day. She did suit up Tuesday and participated in warmups.

"It's just a matter of do we want to play her or not," Nichols said, "because she's not in condition yet. If you're not in condition yet there's a good chance of getting hurt. I'm not going to risk that for the kid. She'll be fine."

Marist, which returns two starters from a team that took fourth in Class 4A last season, led 6-4 midway through the first quarter and trailed 14-12 after a quarter.

It got away fast.

Montini scored the first 9 points of the second quarter, capped off by a Mallory Sosnovich 3-pointer, to go ahead 23-12. It was 41-21 by halftime. Montini went 16 for 19 from the free-throw line and forced 14 turnovers in the first half. For the game point guard Whitney Holloway had 6 steals, backcourt mate Kiki Wilson 5 and Seberger 4 for the Broncos.

"They're a very good basketball team," Marist coach Mary Pat Connolly said. "We thought we'd throw ourselves in the fire right away. They didn't lose anybody from last year, and we lost six seniors."

Seberger knocked down four 3-pointers in the second half. Montini as a team made nine.

"I got the hot hand," Seberger said. "When you got it, you have to keep on shooting."

Holloway, the blur at the point of the Broncos' attack, finished with 13 points and 9 assists. Chrissy Fletcher added 9 points and freshman Tianna Brown 8. Haley Stercic, one of Marist's returning starters from the state team, scored 21 points.

"First night, I'm pretty pleased," Nichols said, "but we still have a lot of things to work on."