Lisle shows it can play with Timothy Christian
Lisle didn’t enjoy watching Timothy Christian place second last week at the Lisle Holiday Cage Classic.
The Lions feel a lot better after defeating the Trojans 37-25 Wednesday in a nonconference girls basketball game in Elmhurst.
“It’s a really, really nice win for us,” Lisle coach Dan Murray said. “Obviously, they’re just coming off the tournament and almost knocking off (St. Edward in the championship game). That’s kind of what we talked about. We obviously wanted to get to that winner’s bracket. We were the 4 seed. We didn’t handle our business, but this was our opportunity to show we belonged there.”
“Last week at our Christmas tournament they got second place and we were on the other side of the bracket,” added Lisle junior guard Kristina Fernette. “We wanted to show we could play with the best.”
The Trojans just want to start the new year over.
“We have a lot to work on, but we just have to make sure we show up,” said Timothy Christian coach Ryan DeKoekkoek, whose team committed 21 turnovers and made just 10 of 36 shots. “When you turn the ball over as much as we did tonight, shooting as bad as we did tonight, it isn’t going to get the job done.”
Lisle (13-4) scored the game’s first 5 points, but Timothy Christian closed the first quarter with a 9-0 run to take the lead. Lisle came right back again, scoring the first 6 points of the second quarter while holding the Trojans scoreless for the first five minutes.
“We did a really nice job switching our defenses,” Murray said. “We were able to take out a couple of their main weapons with our switching defenses. They never seemed to get in a rhythm. Our guards, Kristina Fernette and Skylar Tomko, did a fantastic job of handling the pressure throughout the game, and when we do that we can be a very good basketball team.”
Lisle led 15-13 at halftime and never trailed in the second half, though Timothy’s Michelle Ditchfield tied the game at 19 with 2:25 left in the third period on a putback. Darian Payne broke the tie a little more than a minute later to start an 8-0 Lisle run as the Lions began to pull away, hitting 12 of 16 free throws in the fourth quarter.
“I’ve been struggling recently,” said Fernette, who made all four of her free throws, “but it was good to finally get them.”
Shelby Kretman led Lisle with 17 points, and Payne added 9 points and 8 rebounds.
“That’s what we continuously talk to Shelby about is continuing to be aggressive offensively,” Murray said. “Sometimes she’s her own worst enemy. She just doesn’t look for her shot. She’s been doing that the last couple of games. When she does that we’re a much more dangerous basketball team.”
Cassidy Block led the Trojans with 11 points.
“We just didn’t play well tonight, unfortunately,” DeKoekkoek said.