Prospect musters up a victory over Mundelein
Two days after a visit from Rolling Meadows, another team with the nickname of Mustangs arrived at the Jean Walker Field House on Monday night for a nonconference girls basketball game.
“It was funny,” said Knights senior guard-forward Mallory Gonzalez. “We were watching film (of Mundelein, Monday’s opponent) and we said ‘OK, they’re the Mustangs, too.’ ”
These Mustangs were one of the hottest teams from Lake County, coming into the contest with six straight wins and an 11-5 record.
But the Knights, coming off a 69-50 loss to Meadows, were up to this test which happened to come on finals week at school.
Leading 21-13 at the break, thanks to a 6-0 run in the final 1:35, Prospect pulled away with a 22-5 run to start the second half and won 51-27 for their 15th win in 18 games.
Defense was the name of the game for the Knights, who held Mundelein to a season-low in scoring.
“We were big on trying to deny them the ball,” Gonzalez said. “If you do that, then they can’t start plays or anything.
“It felt good coming back with a win after Saturday. We were not looking at the past, only to the future.”
Catherine Sherwood was looking to score in her second game back from concussion-like symptoms. The junior forward scored a game-high 18 points, including 12 in the first half.
“Offensively, Cat was very solid, very tough,” said Prospect coach Ashley Graham. “She is a hard matchup because she is a quick post. We have been working with her on hitting the 15-footers.”
Sherwood’s nifty left-handed 6-footer on a drive with 1:10 left in the first half gave Prospect a 19-13 lead.
Then, with five seconds left in the half, the Knights worked the clock perfectly and got Taylor Will to drive in for a layup.
All of a sudden Prospect turned a close game into a 7-point lead.
“We talked about that,” said Mundelein coach Brian Evans. “It should have been a 4-point game at half. We talked about this being a huge opportunity to come into the gym of a really good team and make a statement, like we were doing in the first half.
“But our coaches could tell in the locker room at half there was no emotion, and that’s how we played in the second half (when Mundelein was outscored 30-14). The loss doesn’t bother me. It’s the lack of emotion that does.”
Graham said there was no lack of effort from senior Marissa Pacini, whose 14-footer in the fourth quarter gave Prospect a 43-18 lead.
“Marissa is one of our unsung heroes,” Graham said. “Shes does all the little things you don’t see, like getting key rebounds or making some great outlet passes.
“And we know we can count of her to guard one of the opponent’s top players. She did great so I’m really proud of her.”
Junior Natalie Busscher, whose 7 points were the only ones scored by Mundelein in the first 9:40 of the game, led the Mustangs with 11 points.
“I was happy with the first half,” said Evans, who was without 5-9 junior Maggie Mahar (14 ppg) because of illness.
Senior forward Taylor Lintner came off the bench and scored all 7 of her points in the fourth quarter.
Taylor Will, who was honored before the game for scoring her 1,000th career point against Rolling Meadows, finished with 13 points while her freshman sister Haley chipped in 6.
Sherwood’s 18 points were 4 shy of her career-high of 22 against Stevenson.
“Coach always tells us on e of our goals is to hold our opponent to 37 points or less so that was awesome,” Sherwood said. “We talked at half about how we were exchanging baskets with them and we wanted to get away from that. We did, so that was good.”
Graham said the Knights were quite pleased with their first half on Saturday against Rolling Meadows.
“But we were not so happy with the second half,” she said “We talked about not letting that happen again. We put Meadows behind us and we got back into the win column.”