Glenbard South wins seventh straight
Glenbard South seems to know when it’s winning time.
Par for the course this year, the Raiders played their best basketball late on Tuesday, scoring the game’s final 10 points to beat Riverside-Brookfield 55-46 in Glen Ellyn.
It is Glenbard South’s seventh straight win. On Saturday the Raiders (9-2, 4-0 Metro Suburban Conference) trailed by 2 at St. Francis after three quarters before rallying for a 6-point win. Glenbard South also came back from a double-digit second-half deficit to beat Glenbard West.
“They refuse to lose, that’s the bottom line,” Raiders coach Julie Fonda said. “It’s something we’ve been battling all year is they wait to see how hard they have to play and then they make it happen. The refuse to lose part I love; I just wish we wouldn’t wait so long to turn it on.”
Stefi Bazigos scored 17 points for Glenbard South, including the basket that put her team ahead for good. With 3:11 left Bazigos took the inbounds pass at the top of the key and drove hard to the rim for the go-ahead score.
After a Theresa Scheet 3-pointer, Sydney Bauman blocked an R-B 3-point attempt and Jenna Brambora, who scored 12 points, knocked down a pair of free throws. R-B (10-2, 3-1) went scoreless the last 3:34.
“We keyed in on defense. That was the most important part because we had been going back and forth on offense,” Bazigos said. “We had stepped it up on offense, but we had to bring it to the defensive side.”
With R-B packing its defense in, making a conscious effort to limit Bauman’s touches, Glenbard South knocked down eight 3-pointers. Bazigos hit 3, Scheet and Ivana Markovic 2 apiece.
Brittney JnoBaptiste had 14 points and 10 rebounds and Hannah Claywell 11 points for R-B, which led 27-23 at half.
“We always have heated battles with Glenbard South and they executed at the end and we turned it over at some inopportune times,” R-B coach Dallas Till said. “We just didn’t get it done at the end. We had a lead at halftime on the road; that’s all you can ask for.”
Glenbard South’s defense broke down on several occasions earlier in the game but stiffened late. R-B scored just 6 points in the fourth quarter and only attempted 5 free throws in the second half after going to the line 14 times in the first.
“They locked it down when we needed to,” Fonda said. “In the beginning our defense was swiss cheese. They have to learn to stop the drive.”
Down 4 at half, a Bazigos 3-pointer ignited a 9-2 Raiders run to start the third quarter. A Markovic 3-pointer in the final seconds of the third quarter gave the Raiders a 42-40 lead heading to the fourth quarter.
Markovic, who played all 32 minutes, remarkably without committing a foul, had 11 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals. The 5-foot-8 sophomore is never afraid to mix it up inside with girls bigger than her.
“Ivana, she played 32 minutes of hard-nosed defense. I’m really proud of her,” Fonda said. “Defensively, rebounding she’s our Energizer Bunny.”