Round 1 goes to Wheaton North
Glenbard South would love a rematch with Wheaton North.
The Falcons wouldn’t mind defending Saturday’s 49-37 nonconference girls basketball victory against the visiting Raiders. The teams could meet again in less than two weeks at Wheaton North’s holiday tournament if both reach the semifinals.
“I love playing against her,” Wheaton North coach Dave Eaton said of his good friend, Raiders coach Julie Fonda. “Her team’s good.”
Playing good teams makes your own team better in the long run, no matter the result.
“Like Dave said, he’d play against me, I’d play against him 10 games in a row,” Fonda said, happy with the effort her players gave throughout the game against Wheaton North’s withering pressure defense. “Our kids compete and they compete at a high level, and that’s what you’re asking them to do. To be able to execute that, it’s fun to watch.”
Wheaton North was the better team Saturday, though, leading almost from start to finish in Wheaton. The Falcons hit double digits late in the first half on a Mandy Traversa 3-pointer for a 19-9 lead, but the Raiders cut the margin in half by halftime to 20-15.
The Falcons (7-3) were just getting started, however, going on a 14-2 run to start the third quarter. The Raiders (10-3) never got within single digits again.
“The shots started to fall a little bit in the third,” Eaton said. “It was a physical game. We just couldn’t get anything going momentum-wise early. We work on playing a little more uptempo, and I didn’t think we shot the ball well tonight. I’m sure our shooting percentage reflects that, especially from the free-throw line.
“But you’re going to have those games, and I think our defense did a good enough job to keep us in it. I don’t think we played great defense tonight, but I thought we played good enough defense to get us by.”
“We changed up some stuff and we just didn’t execute it very well,” Fonda said. “I guess it’s the price you pay for taking a chance. It could’ve gone either way and it went their way.”
Traversa, a 6-foot-1 senior guard, scored 10 points in that key third period and finished with 20 points and 7 rebounds. Junior forward Chrissy Baird added 11 points and senior point guard Reilly Stewart had 10.
Sophomore Stefi Bazigos led the Raiders with 12 points and 5 steals, and classmate Ivana Markovic added 10 points and 3 steals.