Waubonsie Valley falters against South Elgin

In a chippy, physical battle the South Elgin Storm girls basketball team took care of the Waubonsie Valley Warriors with a 43-30 road victory on Friday night.

With the win the Storm completed the Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division season sweep of the Warriors after previously blowing out Waubonsie 65-28 on Dec. 6.

The Storm was led by sophomore Nadia Yang and senior Savanah Uveges, who had 8 and 7 points on the night, respectively.

“Me and Savannah, we distributed the ball more and we got a lot of shots off,” Yang said. “We were a little bit off (at the beginning) and then we started getting in the rhythm and all the shots started falling, and then we started driving to the basket pretty well.”

After a strong first quarter by Waubonsie and junior guard Emma Rigby — who ended the night with 7 points of her own — the Storm fought back, taking the lead in the second quarter and never looked back.

“I thought the game was sloppy partly due to the officiating,” said South Elgin coach Tim Prendergast. “The officials let us play and I don’t think us or Waubonsie was ready for that… . So it kind of got us out of our rhythm a little bit.”

Defensively, we held them … and any time you can do that your gonna win most games. … Overall I always say ‘a win’s a win,’ there’s not a lot of style points whether you win by 30 or 10.”

The Storm (13-6, 5-1), which won its fifth straight, took advantage of the Warriors with their high-pressure defense, forcing a number of turnovers, though Waubonsie coach Dave Owles thought his team did a good job limiting South Elgin’s offense.

“We knew we were gonna have to make it a lower-scoring game,” Owles said. “At their place it was much more of a track meet and it got out of hand. So I’m very proud of our girls effort. … It was a much better game for us against them than it was the last time. It was tough, though. It was such a physical game.”

Freshman Janiece Thomas led the Warriors in scoring with 9 points on the night, including a 3-pointer.

Both teams return to action on Thursday when Waubonsie Valley heads to Bartlett and South Elgin faces off against Metea Valley at home. Both games start at 7:15 p.m.