Andrews sisters lead Huntley by South Elgin
Most freshmen who start on a varsity team in their first year of high school basketball take a little while to get acclimated to the speed of the varsity game.
Huntley’s Ali Andrews is already proving to be anything but the typical freshman.
Andrews had another sparkling effort Monday night, scoring a game-high 21 points to go along with 4 assists and 3 blocked shots as the Red Raiders rolled to a 56-34 win over South Elgin in the Dundee-Crown Thanksgiving Tournament. The game was played at South Elgin.
“Defensively we just couldn’t contend with (Andrews),” said South Elgin coach Tim Prendergast. “She was a load; she was more than a load. I saw her play this summer and I knew she was good but she’s really good.”
Helping Andrews with the transition to high school basketball has been the fact her sophomore sister, Sam, has a year of varsity under her belt already.
“It’s good to have someone you know out there,” Ali Andrews said. “Sam and I have played together for a long time. It’s fun to have your sister out there with you.”
Sam Andrews hit 2 3-pointers in the first quarter on her way to a 14-point game. She also had 4 assists, 3 of them to her sister.
“Our team came out strong,” Ali Andrews said. “We executed our plays really well and my teammates got me the ball.”
Huntley (4-1) jumped out to an 11-4 lead midway through the first quarter and never looked back. Ali Andrews scored the first 4 points of the game and Sam Andrews hit a 3-pointer during the run as the Red Raiders established their inside dominance early.
South Elgin (2-2) trailed just 18-15 after an Amanda Behles basket with 5:04 left in the second quarter but Huntley went on a 7-2 run to end the half with a 25-17 lead. The Raiders then opened the third quarter on a 12-3 spurt that gave them a 37-20 lead after an Ali Andrews basket with 3:16 left in the third. South Elgin wouldn’t come closer than 16 the rest of the night.
Haley Ream added 11 points and 4 assists for Huntley, which shot 22 of 45 from the field and only turned the ball over 10 times in the first three quarters.
“The second half we had better rhythm offensively,” said Huntley coach Steve Raethz. “We picked it up on both ends of the floor and asserted ourselves more. We’re still a young team with a lot of kids who are inexperienced so we’re still going through a learning curve. It’s nice to get some good competition and we’re doing a good job of improving. We’ve rebounded well from the Hononegah loss. I’m pretty happy right now.”
Anna Tracy led South Elgin with 12 points. Kennede Miller had 7 rebounds.
“One disturbing trend right now is that we’re having a hard time putting the ball in the basket,” said Prendergast, whose team made just 15 of 58 shots and missed 15 times in the paint. “I know we’re capable of shooting well, but we have to get more on transition. We need to chip and scrap our way to getting baskets and we’re not doing that right now. And Huntley is a pretty good team. We took a couple steps back tonight but we’ll be OK.”
Streamwood 67, McHenry 42: The Sabres (3-1) bounced back from Saturday’s loss to Crystal Lake South by jumping out to a 35-20 halftime lead and cruising to the win.
Jessica Cerda scored 15 points to lead the Sabres, while Hannah McGlone had 13 points, 10 rebounds and 12 blocked shots. Her 12 blocks is just one shy of the school record held by Angie Stallone.
“We got off to a good start,” said Streamwood coach George Rosner. “We had a lot of energy and good ball pressure. We got some steals early and got our running game going. Our pressure defense was they key. It got us a lot of steals and a lot of layups. We got a lot of contributions off the bench tonight. It’s always good to play like that after a loss.”
Deja Moore added 9 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists and 5 steals for the Sabres.