Cary-Grove comes back to stop Prairie Ridge
Cary-Grove girls basketball coach Rod Saffert couldn’t repeat what he said to his team at halftime.
Whatever Saffert’s pearls of wisdom were at intermission, the tactics worked.
Holding a slim 24-21 lead at halftime, Cary-Grove grabbed control of the game in the third quarter, outscoring Prairie Ridge 18-3. The result was the Trojans cruising to a 47-29 win over the Wolves in Fox Valley Conference Valley Division action in Crystal Lake Tuesday night.
“Our defense, our rebounding and our patience offensively were not good in the first half,” said Saffert. “We did those things in the second half and played a phenomenal half. We also made a concentrated effort to get the ball to the scorers.”
The Trojans (5-3, 1-0) scored the first 10 points of the third quarter to take a 34-21 lead. Cary-Grove’s dynamic duo of Olivia Jakubicek and Joslyn Nicholson scored 5 points each to account for all of the Trojans’ points during the pivotal run. PR didn’t score in the half until Kelly Klendworth converted 1-of-2 free throws to make the score 34-22 with 2:52 remaining in the quarter.
Prairie Ridge’s only basket of the quarter came on a layup by Kelsey Bear at the buzzer to cut Cary-Grove’s lead to 18, 42-24, after 24 minutes of play.
Nicholson and Jakubicek scored 9 points each to account for all of The Trojans’ points in the quarter.
“We wanted the ball in our scorers hands in the third quarter,” said Saffert. “We wanted Olivia and Joslyn shooting the ball. Olivia did a great job of taking the ball to the basket and Joslyn’s turn around shot is almost impossible to stop. They really carried us in the third quarter.”
The Trojans’ biggest lead of the game was 24, 46-22, after a 5-footer in the lane by Abby Jakubicek with 4:02 left in the game.
Nicholson led the Trojans with 17 points while Olivia Jakubicek scored 16 with 12 rebounds and 3 assists.
“We realized we had to play better in the second half,” said Nicholson. “We played with more intensity in the second half and rebounded and played better defense. It is better to be 1-0 in the conference than 0-1.”
Alex Neckopulos led the Wolves with 6 points while Bear added 5.