Fischer leads Hawks' charge past Fillies

In its only two losses of the season, Hoffman's Estates girls basketball team was unable to make up early deficits to Wheeling and Fremd.

But this time, the Hawks found the answer after trailing 15-6 to host Barrington with two minutes left in the first quarter on Friday night.

It wasn't quite as easy as 1-2-3.

Let's just say 2-3.

"We started out in man-to-man defense," said the Hawks' Charleston-bound Megan Fischer (game-high 22 points, 6 rebounds). "Then we went to a 2-3 zone and that defense finally seemed to work."

The Hawks (7-2, 2-1) began to crawl back into the Mid-Suburban West game and eventually emerged with a 49-44 triumph.

Fischer made her last 12 free throws and was 14-of-15 for the game.

After senior Anna Kirchoff's driving bucket gave the hosts a 15-6 lead with 2:01 left in the first quarter, the Hawks held the Fillies (7-1, 1-1) without a basket for more than nine minutes.

Sarah Reindl made a nice pass inside to Anna Kirchoff to give Barrington a 20-19 lead with 40 seconds left in the first half. The Fillies led 21-20 at the break.

But Hoffman got a 16-footer and layup from Jada Stotts (12 rebounds, 6 points), an 8-foot putback and driving layup by Alex Wulbecker (7 points) and 9 points from Fischer to lead 36-26 after three quarters.

Hoffman maintained a 44-35 advantage with 1:37 left.

Sophomore Abby Kirchoff (9 points) hit all her field goals (three 3-pointers) in the final 1:24 to make things close while Hoffman missed the front end of two bonus situations and was 1-of-4 in the final 1:09.

"Carol King and Megan Bernardoni did a good job stopping their penetration at the front of our 2-3 defense," said Hawks coach Mike Nocella. "Jada did a very nice job on the boards. Alex was really scrappy. And Megan (Evans) really helped us after being out of practice all week (concussion)."

Fischer helped the Hawks seal the win with 4-of-4 free throws in the final 28 seconds.

"I was glad to see Megan going to the line," Nocella added of his 80 percent free throw shooter. "This was a good game between two good teams. We were fortunate to get back into it early.

"We switched to the 2-3 zone and they (Barrington) were struggling in it. They got a couple of easy buckets, but for the most part they never got into a rhythm so we stayed in it."

Barrington forward Jenny Schnack scored 9 of her 14 points in the five minutes.

Two of Abby Kirchoff's 3-pointers were from about 24 feet.

"I couldn't go in close to the line because they were guarding it," she said.

"I don't know what happened in the third quarter. We stopped playing the way we should have and when we got down, we started to get frustrated. We have to learn to keep our intensity up at all times. Thank God we get to play them (Hoffman) again in conference."

Fillies coach Babbi Barreiro said her team's 20 turnovers were costly.

"Any time you give up 20 opportunities to score, you are not putting yourself in a good position," she said. "Hoffman is a good team. We've had an awful lot of fun starting out like we have. But the first loss is still disappointing. We have a lot of different players with different roles and I don't think everyone executed their roles.

"But I liked how we never quit and put ourselves back in a position to win at the end. Those were big shots by Abby."

Fischer called it a "really good win" for her team.

"Handing them their first loss is exciting," she said. "After our loss at Fremd, we feel like we have to win every game in the conference to get a shot at league championship."