Antioch’s carom club runs off with decisive victory
If at first you don’t succeed, well, then grab the offensive rebound and toss it back up there.
That was the strategy host Antioch employed to perfection Friday night during a 60-31 triumph over Grant in a North Suburban Prairie Division contest. The Sequoits (6-3, 2-0) outrebounded the visitors from Fox Lake 53-24, with 33 of those boards coming on the offensive end.
“We had an incentive to rebound well tonight,” said senior guard Megan Borries, who tallied a game-high 12 points. “Coach told us we’d be doing a lot of running in our next practice if we didn’t rebound well. I guess we won’t be running much on Monday.”
“Coach” would be Megan’s dad, Tim Borries, who was thrilled with his team’s performance in front of the home crowd.
“Defensively, this was maybe our strongest effort of the year,” said coach Borries, whose team limited the Bulldogs (5-5, 2-1) to 10 first-half points. “We really came out and challenged them. We lost four starters from last year, but the girls are really starting to come together as a team.
“Carly McCameron (8 rebounds) supplied the rebounding spark we needed. She knows that’s what I want her to do when she gets in there. And Rachel (Schwabe) provided a lot of offense off the bench.”
Three of Schwabe’s baskets were from 3-point range on her way to an 11-point performance.
“We don’t have a lot of height this year, so I don’t start,” said Schwabe, a 5-foot-3 senior guard. “Coming off the bench, my job is to bring energy and I think I did that pretty well tonight.”
Junior guard Paige Gallimore scored 10 points and corralled 8 rebounds for the winners, who put the game away with a 16-0 run beginning midway through the first quarter, including four 3-pointers. The Sequoits added a 14-2 run right after Grant scored the first 6 points of the second half.
The Bulldogs were riding a four-game winning streak, including a 24-point win over Wauconda and a 23-point decision over Lake Forest, but were stymied by Antioch’s 3-point shooting and strong rebounding.
“We gave up too many loose balls and too many offensive rebounds,” said Grant coach Matt Lukemeyer. “You can’t do that when a team is shooting the lights out like they were tonight.
“Usually we’re a full-court team that likes to press, but when your shots won’t go down, you can’t do that. We need to get some easy layups to play the way we want to. We learned tonight that you can’t wait around to start playing well. You have to do it right away.”
Junior guard McKenzie Burton led Grant with 9 points, senior guard Sadie Contreras contributed 7 and freshman guard Jasmine Sangster added 5.