South Elgin overcomes 33 from Schaumburg’s Blackwell
The roller coaster ride South Elgin’s girls basketball team has been on all season continued Tuesday night, but for the second game in a row the Storm hung on for a win after blowing a big lead.
After falling behind early, South Elgin charged back to take control, then had to hold on in the end to notch a 60-56 nonconference win over visiting Schaumburg.
“We didn’t make our free throws down the stretch and I’m really disappointed with the turnovers we had down the stretch,” said South Elgin coach Tim Prendergast. “We need to finish better, but at the end of the day I like our team a lot. The pieces are there.”
Schaumburg (1-8) was the aggressor early, jumping out to a 19-9 lead early in the first quarter as 5-foot-11 junior Jada Blackwell was 5-for-5 (including 3 3-pointers) and scored 17 points in the game’s first 6 minutes, 39 seconds. She finished with a career-high 33 points.
“She had it going,” said Schaumburg coach Curtis Goodwin. “But we’ve got to figure out a way to put it together the whole game.”
South Elgin (6-4) put together a 7-0 run to end the first quarter down just 19-16 and the Storm had clearly grabbed the momentum, which turned into a 26-point second quarter and a 42-26 lead by halftime.
Senior Savanah Uveges, who scored just 2 points in the first quarter, hit for 12 of her team-high 18 in the second. After a defensive switch, Uveges also held Blackwell without a field goal in the second quarter.
“We don’t come out strong for some reason,” said Uveges, who added 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals. “For some reason we play a little timid. The second quarter we come back strong.”
The Storm took the lead for good, 20-19, on a steal and layup from junior Delaney Kelleher with 6:43 left in the first half. A 3-pointer from junior Lillan Chavarria (10 points) with 4:25 left in the half drew the Saxons to within 24-23 but South Elgin went on an 18-3 run to end the half and it appeared the Storm would cruise to the win.
But the Saxons came back strong in the second half. They cut the South Elgin lead to 53-41 by the end of the third quarter and then battled to within 3, 59-56, after a basket from Chavarria with 33 seconds left in the game. But a Delaney Kelleher free throw with 16 seconds to go finished the scoring. The teams combined to go just 5-for-11 from the free-throw line in the fourth quarter including 1 of 7 in the final 1:27.
“We were very lax on defense in the second quarter,” Goodwin said. “They really took it to us. “But we’re getting there.”
Freshman Mackie Kelleher added 10 points and 7 rebounds for the Storm, who won the rebounding battle 38-32 and shot 23 of 55 for the night. Anna Tracy added 8 points, sophomore Bridgette Williams had 7 points and 7 rebounds off the bench and senior Kennede Miller had 8 rebounds.
“Defensively we had a couple breakdowns and they got back in the game,” said Prendergast, whose team plays West Chicago Friday then takes on Fremd, which beat defending Class 4A state champion Marian Catholic last weekend, in the first round of the Montini Christmas tournament on Monday.
“The turnovers at the end are a concern. When we run our delay we want to run it to score and we didn’t do that. We need to get better at that.”
Uveges wants to see more intensity for 32 minutes.
“We need to push each other more at practice,” she said. “We can’t pick and choose when to play hard.”