Hersey completes winning pattern

Hersey was looking to complete an early season “circle,” as they called it, in the Mid-Suburban East.

Since Wheeling had previously defeated Buffalo Grove in conference, BG had beaten Prospect and the Knights had won over the Huskies, the theory was that Hersey had to beat the Wildcats to close the loop.

Sort of an MSL six degrees of separation — and the way the Huskies played Friday night at Ken Carter Gymnasium, the closure and the outcome was never in doubt.

Hersey (10-1, 2-1) jumped all over the visiting Wildcats (5-6, 1-2) early then put up a 21-point second quarter to salt the game away in a 59-33 victory.

Even though the home team opened up a quick 11-1 lead, junior Annie Korff (10 points, game high 8 rebounds) said that she didn’t think the Huskies “played all that well” in the first quarter.

“We really picked it up in the second quarter,” said Korff. “We were able to settle in to our transition offense and our defense came together.”

Hersey, led by 19 points from Morgan Harris, was on fire from 3-point range as the Huskies made all 5 of their attempts in the second period and finished 8-of-13 for the contest.

Wheeling was led by Deanna Kuzmanic, who scored 11 points despite playing only limited minutes due to illness.

“Hersey was great shooting the 3’s tonight,” said Wheeling coach Julissa Hernandez. “We were only down 10 at half, so I thought we had something we could work with. But they kept making their threes, and that’s what good teams do.”

The score was 32-22 at intermission but Harris nailed two quick 3-pointers right out of the second-half gate to extend the lead to 16.

The Wildcats couldn’t get any closer the rest of the way as Huskies freshman Claire Gritt scored 13 points while Renee Poulos added 8 points on some deadly accurate jump shooting.

Hannah Dobrowski scored 9 points for Wheeling in a gutty performance.

“She’s a fighter,” Hernandez said of Dobrowski, a junior. “She was aggressive and attacked the basket, and that’s what we needed.”

Although the Huskies showed uncanny marksmanship from 3-point range, it wasn’t all shooting for the winners.

Hersey won the rebounding battle and excelled on defense as well as Gritt, Harris, Juliette Vainisi and Kelly Weyhrich had 4 steals apiece.

Weyhrich scored 5 points, while Emma Slosar made her presence felt in the fourth quarter with a bucket and 3 rebounds.

“This was one of our best performances of the year,” Harris said. “I’m especially happy with the way we played on defense.”

“We’ve got a lot of girls who can shoot the 3,” added Korff, “and we were hitting them tonight.”