Kane County Chronicle / KCChronicle.com • Saturday, January 4, 2014
| SPORTS
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GIRLS BASKETBALL: BURLINGTON CENTRAL 51, RICHMOND-BURTON 28
Burlington Central girls trounce R-B By JARED BIRCHFIELD editorial@kcchronicle.com BURLINGTON – Given the frigid weather conditions Friday night, the Burlington Central girls basketball team could not be blamed if it was anxious to complete the game against Richmond-Burton and go home. Central coach Mark Smith kept reminding the team during the first half that a calmer tempo was needed if the team wanted to leave the gym with a victory. Central found the right pace of play and defeated Richmond, 51-28, in the Big
Northern East Conference game. “We were going a million miles an hour,” said Smith, who kept yelling “Slow down” from the sidelines during the first two quarters. “I know they are anxious and hyped up. They love to play. When you press, you kind of get into that hectic rhythm, so it’s kind of hard to slow it down. We adjusted well.” “We got to work on that, slowing down,” said Central sophomore Samantha Pryor, who led all scorers with 19 points. “Slow down and get better looks at the basket.” Central’s pressing defense
forced three Richmond turnovers in the opening minutes of the game that yielded three quick baskets. Central (12-2, 2-0 Big Northern East) led, 207, after the first quarter. “We are preaching to them that quick shots aren’t good and I thought we took a lot of quick shots [in the first half],” Smith said. “When they go in, you get a nice little run, but if they don’t go in then you have to play defense for another 30 seconds.” Richmond-Burton, which had not played a game since Dec. 20, found its groove in the second quarter. R-B was able to close the gap to seven
points with five minutes to play in the half on a Jessica Guenther layup. R-B (5-7, 0-2) outscored Central, 10-9 in the second quarter and trailed 2917 at halftime. “I thought we did a really good of shaking off the rust,” Richmond-Burton coach Courtney Ludois said. “I don’t think it took us too long to get back in our rhythm so that was good to see.” “We kind of go through spurts of energy,” added R-B’s leading scorer, Hannah Koenig, referring to her team’s second quarter play, “When our energy is up, that is working for us.”
Koenig had nine points on the night. Central found its rhythm in the third quarter with an 11-3 run that started and ended with Samantha Pryor’s 3-pointers. Central doubled up Richmond-Burton, 42-21, by the end of the third quarter. “When we were patient, we got wide open looks inside,” Smith said. “A few other times we went inside and kicked it out for a wide open three.” Shelby Holt scored nine points for Central while teammate Samantha Cruz added six.
GIRLS BASKETBALL: AURORA CENTRAL CATHOLIC 47, WALTHER CHRISTIAN 31
Pregame pep talk has quite the effect on ACC girls By JAKE POWERS jpowers@shawmedia.com AURORA – The Aurora Central Catholic girls basketball team met with former Chargers players before its Friday night game against Walther Christian to talk some basketball. The advice that the alumni bestowed on the current team seems to have taken an immediate effect. ACC beat Walther Christian, 47-31, in what junior guard Jordyn Sundberg said was an effort inspired by the team’s pregame conversation. “Before the game started we had a bunch of alumni come in and talk to us and that meant a lot,” Sundberg said. “With them coming in to talk to us, it showed that we needed to play for them and play for each other and really come together as a team.” ACC (8-6, 2-1 SCC Blue) clearly took the push to play team basketball to heart. The Chargers allowed only two Walther Christian points in the third quarter to take command of the game and build a strong lead. The key for ACC in the
“Before the game started we had a bunch of alumni come in and talk to us and that meant a lot. With them coming in to talk to us, it showed that we needed to play for them and play for each other and really come together as a team.” Jordyn Sundberg Aurora Central Catholic guard third quarter was shutting down Walther Christian’s Dana Turner, who had scored 13 points in the first half and appeared poised to continue the effort into the third quarter. ACC coach Mark Fitzgerald knew that his team had to make adjustments defensively in order to slow down Turner and Walther Christian (3-10, 0-3 SCC Blue). “We knew we would sacrifice the outside shot for the dribble drive and we knew that she’s a very excellent player, but, you take that away, it takes away a lot of her game,” Fitzgerald said. “So we switched it back to zone and mixed up the zones and the kids for the most part did a really good job. We got some key charges on her, and that was really good to see.”
Sundberg, who drew one of the offensive fouls on Turner, said that the game rested on how well the Chargers would bounce back defensively in the second half. “That was our game plan the whole time to stop [Turner] and as you could see, we couldn’t really do that [in] the first half,” Sundberg said. “Once we realized that we just needed to step in front of her and take those charges, that’s what we ended up doing.” Sundberg opened up the third quarter with a steal and took it all the way to the hoop for an easy layup to put ACC up, 30-21. Junior forward Natalie Droeske added a layup, and freshman center Taylor Harazin tacked on two free throws to account for all the scoring the Chargers would
get in the third quarter. The Broncos were scoreless until the final seconds of the quarter, when Turner put in a contested layup to move the score to 34-23 at the end of the period. The six points that ACC scored in the third quarter were all that it would need. Turner scored six points in the final period for the Broncos, but ACC’s Gabi Alfaro countered with seven points of her own to prevent any sort of comeback. Kali Soris also scored five points in the fourth quarter for ACC. Fitzgerald praised the play of Sundberg, even though most of her contributions could not be found on a stat sheet.
“She has come on unbelievably strong,” Fitzgerald said. “We’ve been preaching about using the proper hand to make the steals, and she came up huge today for us. I mean she is the reason we won that game. A lot of good efforts everywhere, but she was key to us today.” Alfaro (10), Soris (9), Alex Horton (8) and Sundberg (6) rounded out the top scorers for the Chargers. Walther Christian’s Turner finished with a game-high 21 points. Fitzgerald sees the game as a turning point for ACC, which has had an inconsistent start to its 2013-14 campaign. “Hopefully this is the start of something good here,” Fitzgerald said.
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