Bartlett survives against Dundee-Crown
Bartlett girls basketball coach Denise Sarna had some words of warning for her team after Monday’s opening round of the 29th Annual Charger Classic at Dundee-Crown.
“I just told them that whatever they did to get ready for this game, they better not do the same thing (today),” Sarna said.
No. 1 Bartlett, the top seed at the Charger Classic, was sluggish on offense most of the night but ratcheted up the defense when it needed to and finally put away pesky Dundee-Crown 58-36 to advance to today’s quarterfinals.
Bartlett (15-0) will take on Buffalo Grove (2-9) at 8 p.m. today. BG upset Mother McAuley 74-60 Monday.
It took Bartlett until the fourth quarter to finally shake the Chargers (7-5), who came in on a 7-game winning streak. Early in the fourth, D-C cut the Bartlett lead to 42-32 after a 3-point play from Emily Michalski.
But then Bartlett put together one of its patented runs, scoring 12 straight points to grab a 54-32 lead after Haley Videckis scored on a layup. Four of the Hawks’ 6 baskets during the run were layups off transition.
“We let them have that little run and it went from (10) to (22) just like that,” said D-C coach Michelle Russell, whose teams plays a 2 p.m. consolation round game against Mother McAuley today.
“We did a good job of stopping their fast break most of the night but those four killed us.”
D-C’s aggressiveness wasn’t lost on Sarna and the Hawks.
“They were on a seven-game winning streak and I can see why,” Sarna said of the Chargers. “They played hard and they came to play today. We talked about being the favorite and there’s a lot of pressure on us. We wanted to come out and be ready to play. Dundee-Crown did a fantastic job but I was not happy with our defensive intensity tonight.”
The Hawks also did not shoot well, making just 24 of 58 from the field, while D-C was 16 of 42. Averaging just over six 3-pointers a game, Bartlett made just three on Monday.
“We were playing so hard on defense I think we just got tired,” Russell said. “But I couldn’t ask for anything more. To be within 10 of Bartlett in the fourth quarter ... I’m very proud of the effort.”
Senior Haley Videckis, who was guarded closely all night by D-C’s Jill Wiechmann, led the Hawks with 15 points but she had just 2 in the first half. She added 7 rebounds as Bartlett won the glass battle 34-28.
“Jill did a great job on Videckis,” Russell said.
“We definitely know this was not our game,” Videckis said. “We had a mental breakdown tonight. We were confident we were going to win but we didn’t put in the effort we needed to. This was a wake-up call for us.”
Seniors Kristin Conniff (12 points), Lisa Palmer (11 points, 8 rebounds) and Ashley Johnson (9 points, 3 steals) also contributed for Bartlett, while senior Ali Sanders led D-C with 14 points and 6 rebounds. Senior Diamond Williams added 10 points and 6 rebounds for the Chargers but senior guard Carlin Faulkner, still nursing a sore ankle, was limited to a single 3-pointer for the night.