Highlanders play it cool

This is a different Driscoll girls basketball team.

In past seasons a rare victory over St. Francis would have been cause for a major celebration.

This year the Highlanders are acting like they expect to win. So while they were more than a little happy to beat Suburban Catholic Conference foe St. Francis 60-42 Tuesday in Wheaton, they kept the night in perspective as they left the gym.

Never mind that they had just snapped a 23-game losing versus St. Francis. You have to go back to Jan. 12, 1996, for the last time Driscoll (7-1, 1-1) defeated the Spartans (4-6, 0-4).

"It's a different year," Highlanders coach Steve McCuiston said. "I thought this would be an exciting moment for me and all that, but I want more. It's just a different mindset. Last year if we would have done it, it would have partially made our season. But now we've got more to play for than simply beating any given team."

In past seasons Driscoll had plenty of chances to try to bounce back after a loss, but this was the first time these Highlanders faced such a situation. They were coming off a 3-point loss to Rosary.

"We were all upset," Driscoll sophomore center Courtney Lindfors said of the loss. "We were down so we weren't sure if we were going to bring our intensity and all that, but we came out strong."

The Highlanders built a 19-11 lead by the end of the first quarter and stretched their advantage to 36-23 by intermission.

Lindfors scored 10 of her 14 points in the first half, while freshman guard Allie Divito came off the bench to hit her first three 3-point attempts in the second quarter on the way to a game-high 15 points.

The Highlanders led by as many as 19 in the third quarter before St. Francis used an 8-0 run to pull within 45-36 on Maggie O'Toole's 3-pointer with 6:01 remaining.

Driscoll responded by scoring the next 9 points to extend its lead to 54-36.

Taylor Reaber finished with 11 points and Bridget Delboccio added 10 for the Highlanders, who shot 51 percent from the field.

Catherine Culligan's 10 paced St. Francis.

The Spartans shot just 28 percent en route to their sixth straight loss.

"You wouldn't think it's our home floor," Spartans coach Leslie Fay-Dehn said. "If you can't put the ball in the basket, you're not going to win a lot of games, so we've got to be more fundamentally sound. We've got to continue to work on that in practice."