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THE BUGLE DECEMBER 26, 2013
LEWIS Continued from page 13 institution with the most points during the 2013-14 academic year.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL The tale of the box score in the Lewis University women’s basketball team’s 77-65 win over Lincoln Memorial on Thursday (Dec. 19) at Neil Carey Arena will show the Flyers’ key to victory was pulling down a season-high
SPARTANS Continued from page 11 he tallied a game-high 13 points, all in the first three quarters. “They sped us up and we allowed them to speed us up,” Tanaka said. “We wanted to speed it up and tire him out and not let them set up,” Howard said. “Minooka is good when they can spread you
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61 rebounds. Cleaning the board led to 17 big second-chance points for the Flyers, now 6-2 on the year, while holding a 19 rebound advantage over the Railsplitters, who fall to 4-5 on the season, and to four second-chance buckets. Lewis sophomore forward Mariyah Brawner-Henley (Skokie, Ill./Niles North) paced the Flyers with 15 points, matched a careerhigh 17 rebounds and had three blocked shots. Junior forward Jess Reinhart (Normal, Ill./ Bloomington Central Catholic) totaled 11 points and 13 rebounds while redshirt-sophomore guard Jamie Johnson (South Holland, Ill./
Marian Catholic) had 13 points and three steals. Flyer junior guard Nikki Nellen (New Berlin, Wis./Pius XI) tallied 12 points and five assists while classmate Kristin Itschner (Metamora, Ill./Peoria Notre Dame) collected 11 points, five assists and three blocked shots. Sophomore guard Alyssa Dengler (Chicago, Ill./Trinity) scored a career-high 10 points, including two three-pointers, and collected two assists and two rebounds in the win. “Lincoln Memorial did a nice job clogging up the lane to make it difficult for us to consistently get the ball to Jess and Mariyah,”
Lewis head women’s basketball coach Lisa Carlsen said.“We did a nice job competing on the glass tonight, which was the difference in the game.” In the up-tempo first half, both teams struggled to gain the upper hand. Lewis redshirt junior guard Angel Brooks (Chicago, Ill./De La Salle) provided the spark off the bench, scoring five straight points, including a three-pointer, to give Lewis a four-point lead at 25-21 at the 5:14 mark. The Flyers then went on a 14-9 run to close out the half as Itschner and Nellen both chipped in five points during the run. Lewis took a 39-30 lead into the locker room.
Lincoln Memorial picked up the intensity in the second half, as they chipped away at Lewis’ lead. The Railsplitters were able to get within two points at 46-44, on an Aisjah Roan lay-up at the 13:58 mark. Lewis responded and quickly pushed the lead back up to nine points at 53-44, when Nellen led the run when she drained one of her three three-pointers of the night at the 12:20 mark. The Flyers are off for two weeks before opening the Great Lakes Valley Conference slate on Friday, January 3rd, when they host Truman State at Neil Carey Arena. Tip-off is set for 5:30 PM.
out and get their back cuts going and do the screening that they like to do. We wanted to take that away and apply pressure and make them do it more so off the dribble than off the pass.” Even when Minooka was able to get open looks at the basket, their shots were not falling. “We just can’t shoot. We haven’t been able to shoot all year, everything is 30 percent and the three-point line is 10 percent,” Tanaka said. “The shots are all
there, we are just not finishing. It is a mental thing now. We were 37 percent from the free throw line, we had one kid go 0-5 and we have to do a better job of that. It is all mental.We are young without a lot of experience. All we did all week is shoot and it didn’t work.” Despite the poor effort shooting the basketball, Tanaka said he was happy to walk away with a conference win. “We have needed a win so bad,
so to play as bad as we did and escape with a win is nice. It was a good high school basketball game and it was fun to play in,” he said. “Marc is doing a great job here at Romeoville. His kids play really hard and we knew it was going to be a battle. Their kids battled hard all game and to come away with a win in their gym is good because Marc really is doing an awesome job here.” Just like Minooka, Howard said the Spartans have to learn to
close the games and get over the hump mentally and start winning games. “They are kids and they are learning and we are working on teaching them how to win,” he said.“But, we are competing hard every night.” Romeoville was led by 10 points from Josh Krueger and eight from Diamonte’ Gaston, while Minooka got 10 from Jake Smith and seven from Joe Butler. mark@buglenewspapers.com