St. Charles East finally beats Batavia
Instead of saying “here we go again” against Batavia, St. Charles East decided to go right at the Bulldogs.
Attacking the basket almost at will, the No. 5 seeded Saints outscored the No. 4 Bulldogs 24-4 in the third quarter on their way to a 64-48 victory Monday night in the opening game of the Class 4A St. Charles East regional.
St. Charles East (11-17) will play top seed Geneva (21-6) at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the regional semifinals.
Batavia (8-19) defeated the Saints twice during the regular season and came out on fire Monday behind freshman guard Liza Fruendt. She swished three 3-pointers in the first quarter for a 19-13 lead and hit another to start the second quarter giving the Bulldogs their biggest lead of the night at 22-13.
“We were down early, we knew we had to come back,” said the Saints’ own freshman point guard Amanda Hilton. “We had it in the back of our minds we lost to them twice. We didn’t want to lose to them three times so we had to step it up.”
That they did. From the time the Saints trailed 22-13 to the 5:38 mark in the fourth quarter when they were ahead 52-34, St. Charles East outscored Batavia 39-12.
All those early shots that were falling for Batavia stopped — the Bulldogs hit just 2 of 16 their field goal attempts in the third quarter.
And led by Hilton and guards Paige Jordan and Annie Martines off the bench, the Saints repeatedly drove through the lane and either scored, got to the free-throw line or dished to an open Morgan Vyzral (13 points) or Dani Asquini (7 points).
Hilton finished with 20 points and 6 assists, Paige Jordan had 16 points and Martines 6 points. Hilton got to the free-throw line 14 times, Martines 8 and Jordan 5 as the Saints made 20 of 32 free throws to the Bulldogs’ 6 of 12.
“I give a lot of credit to Amanda. Paige and Annie, they were all able to take it to the basket,” Saints coach Lori Drumtra said. “It’s just a dribble-drive offense. When we have perimeter players like that we try to take advantage of that. It worked well tonight. It hasn’t always worked well.”
Trailing 29-25 at halftime, the Saints scored the first 12 points of the third quarter to take control. Vyzral’s basket put the Saints ahead for good. Asquini capped the flurry with a 3-pointer to beat the third-quarter buzzer for a 49-33 lead.
Eventually down by 18 points, the Bulldogs used an 11-4 run to get as close as 56-45 on Fruendt’s 3-pointer with 2:30 remaining. Jordan immediately responded by penetrating and dishing to Asquini to put the Saints back up 13, and the Bulldogs never got closer.
“You can’t go down 24-4 in the third,” Batavia coach Tim DeBruycker said. “It was a little bit of everything. Nothing was going in. It is a little bit in the head. The people taking the shots are people I want taking the shots. We didn’t shoot the ball well and they shot the ball very well all the way down to the 3-pointer at the end of the quarter.”
Fruendt led Batavia with 18 points and senior Maddie Sychta was active on both ends with 13 points, 12 rebounds and 4 blocked shots.
Hilton, the shortest starter on the court, led the Saints with 7 rebounds.
“I thought we played hard, played solid defense,” Drumtra said. “In the past when we played Batavia we got manhandled on the boards. I didn’t think that happened tonight, I thought we held our own (within 42-34).”
Now the Saints need a find a way to stay with a Geneva team that blew them out twice this year, including just last Friday, 66-33.
“They are a tough, tough opponent,” Drumtra said. “We have played them twice and haven’t done real well. Defensively they force you into turnovers. They are a well-oiled machine. We’ll see if we can slow them down and get it into execution in the half court.”