Bartlett bounces back strong
If there's one thing that drives coaches nuts, it's their players not implementing the important things they work on in practice.
Bartlett's girls basketball team helped Hawks' coach Denise Sarna find some sanity Thursday.
Crashing the offensive boards with authority and limiting their turnovers as well as they have all season, the Hawks defeated host Dundee-Crown 48-28 in the consolation bracket of the 30th annual Charger Classic.
Not only did Bartlett (9-8) outrebound the Chargers 44-34, Bartlett grabbed half of its boards on the offensive end, five of them leading to putbacks.
The Hawks also turned the ball over only 14 times after committing 26 miscues in their loss to Mother McAuley on Wednesday.
“We work a lot in practice on rebounding and we want to get as many rebounds as we can,” said Hawks' senior Elizabeth Arco, who had 11 points and 8 rebounds, 7 of them offensive. “It just creates more shots for us.”
Which is something Sarna pointed to first as she checked her IPad stats after the game.
“(Wednesday) we gave up 63 shots and we had 33,” she said. “That happens because of rebounding and turnovers. We did a better job today of rebounding and not turning the ball over. A lot of the things we practice worked today. We passed the ball around better. We got 3 assists from (freshman) Kelly Harris in the post and that's always good. We talk about looking before you throw it and we did a better job of that today.”
The Hawks shot well enough to win, hitting 19 of 58 on the day. Even though they were just 11 of 36 in the first half, their 23-12 edge on the boards and Dundee-Crown's 4-for-24 shooting helped stake Bartlett to a 29-14 lead at the break. Bartlett then scored the first 7 points of the third quarter to put the game out of reach at 36-14. The closest the Chargers would come the rest of the way was 21.
Bartlett's defensive pressure may not have led to many turnovers — the Chargers only had 16 — but D-C (1-12) had trouble penetrating, taking the large majority of its shots from outside the paint.
“We took our defense a bit more serious today,” Arco said. “And we took care of the ball and made every possession matter.”
The Chargers didn't lack for effort, but the lid wouldn't come off the basket all day. D-C finished shooting 10-for-43.
“We don't box out,” said D-C coach Michelle Russell flatly. “We need to start applying what we practice and that's boxing out. They got a lot of second-chance points today.
“The girls play hard and they're showing good effort. Our shot wasn't falling today. We were getting good shots we just didn't make them.”
Senior Alyssa Hernandez had 13 points, 7 rebounds (4 offensive) and 4 blocks for the Hawks and junior Ally Giampapa added 9 points, including a 3-pointer to open the game. Senior Chantel Zasada had 5 assists.
Seniors Jilliam Weichmann and Lauren Lococo led the Chargers with 8 and 7 points respectively, and Stephanie Magsamen had 5 rebounds.
Bartlett will take on Prospect in the consolation bracket semifinals at 12:30 p.m. today. Dundee-Crown plays Johnsburg, a team the Chargers lost to 48-44 earlier in the season, at 9:30 a.m.