Maine South more aggressive than Bartlett
Bartlett girls basketball coach Denise Sarna came away from her team’s second game at the 31st annual Charger Classic at Dundee-Crown believing the Hawks could have won — again.
Instead, Bartlett goes into Saturday’s action with two straight losses.
Maine South handed Bartlett a 54-45 consolation round loss Friday by being more aggressive than Bartlett in a matchup of the past two Charger Classic champions.
“We’re playing too soft,” Sarna said. “We’re shooting layups off one foot, we’re fading back instead of attacking, and until we figure out that you draw fouls by being aggressive we’re missing out on a lot of points.”
Aggressive enough early on, Bartlett (7-7) led 15-12 after one quarter and trailed just 26-23 at halftime. But Maine South (8-9), the defending tournament champ, came out firing on all cylinders in the third quarter and used 3 3-pointers from guard Sam Fagenholz to fuel a 15-5 run that left Bartlett behind 41-30 after a Katherine Miles 3-pointer with 2:49 left in the quarter.
Maine South then extended its lead to 14 points twice in the fourth quarter before Bartlett was able to get within 10 twice. But Bartlett was never able to cut the lead into single digits until the final 1:21, and then only to 9.
Trailing 48-34, Bartlett used back-to-back baskets from senior Ally Gampapa to cut the deficit to 48-38 with 3:25 to play. After 2 free throws from Maine South’s Hailey Schoneman made it 50-38, Elizabeth Arco scored for Bartlett to make it 50-40 with 2:31 left. Bartlett then had two-straight possessions in which it could have cut further into the lead but shots misfired. Schoneman, who was 9 of 11 from the free-throw line, made it 52-40 with two more free throws at the 1:25 mark before a 3-point play from Arco 4 seconds later made it 52-43, but that’s as close as Bartlett would get.
“We didn’t make any big shots and we missed a ton of layups,” said Sarna, whose team was 18-for-56 (32 percent) shooting. “You gotta knock those shots down to win.”
Sarna also lamented the fact her team had only 9 free throw attempts compared to 27 for Maine South. And she wasn’t blaming the officials.
“It wasn’t the officiating,” she said. “It was us playing soft and not being aggressive. The same thing happened (Thursday against Prospect). We went to the line eight times and (Prospect) went 28 times. We’re a good free-throw shooting team but if we can’t get to the line very much it does’t mean anything.
“The opportunity was there to win both these games. We just have to find some mental toughness and continue to battle physically.”
Arco had 18 points and 10 rebounds to lead Bartlett but no other player scored moire than 7 points. Maine South held a 40-24 rebounding advantage.
Maine South was led by 17 points and 13 rebounds from Schoneman. Fagenholz added 14 points.