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Powerful Loyola upends Warren

It's a new season and new challenges are right in front of Warren's girls basketball team. The Blue Devils have a different look opening their season but the heart and effort still remains.

Warren had a slow start in its season opener but played a much better second half in a 53-25 loss to highly regarded Loyola Academy in Wilmette on Tuesday night as part of the New Trier Girls Thanksgiving Tournament.

"One of the big goals was to rub the dew off of them," Warren coach John Stanczykiewicz said. "We had half the roster playing their first varsity game, the other half were returners and we were looking for them to be major contributors. All that was a lot of new. I thought they played really hard and I'm proud of their effort. They played together and played for each other. Everything we need to do better, we can control and we can work on in practice to become better."

The Blue Devils (0-1) had to recover from a 31-5 deficit at the halftime break to Loyola Academy (2-0), which they did and were actually right there with the Ramblers, being outscored 22-20 over the last couple quarters.

Really happy with the way we came out in the second half and with focus," Stanczykiewicz added. "They executed offensively and made some shots. You can't win if you don't make shots. We didn't make one shot in the first quarter. Most of our shots were pretty good, but we just have to make them. It's a confidence thing and being confident in the offense. Then, being confident in your own game. With a lot of new players you have to have the confidence. I know we have talent, it's a process of going through some tough lessons here. Surviving the bumps, being positive as we work to get better. Loyola was a good team and they don't beat themselves. You have to make the plays."

Loyola was the team that ran out quickly, hitting shot after shot and several from 3-point range. The Ramblers led 14-0 after the first eight minutes and extended their lead to 27-0 until the midway portion of the second quarter. The Blue Devils' Kelsey McGraw hit the team's first basket with 4:27 left.

Warren was led by Dana Lundtveit and Macy Kocen each with 7 points.

The Ramblers' Addison Eberling had a game-high 10 points, recently signed Richmond recruit Celia Satter added 8 points and St. Louis-bound Juliana Martinez had 4 with 12 rebounds and 5 steals.

"We've been getting off to great starts with this group," Loyola Academy coach Jeremy Schoenecker said. "We're trying to sustain it for 32 minutes. We just really push the tempo.

"I knew this was (Warren's) first game and they had some jitters. We had played a game Tuesday (against Bogan), we thought we might have a leg up on it You never know, it's early in the season. We didn't know how we would come out. We just came out fast."

Warren will host Taft in the second game of the tournament at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon in Gurnee.

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