Palatine comes back to beat Dundee-Crown

It would be way too early to label Palatine's girls basketball squad a second half team just 2 games into the season.

But in the case of their 66-53 win at the Dundee-Crown Thanksgiving Tournament in Carpentersville Friday night over the host Chargers, maybe the fact it took Palatine a little longer to switch gears, as head coach Mark Johnson alluded to afterward, had the Pirates in the right spot the entire time.

Palatine (1-1) battled back from deficits of seven points in the first quarter and nine in the second and after walking out of halftime down six, the Pirates used a 16-11 third quarter and a 27-point outburst in the final 8 minutes to completely outwork and dominate the Chargers (1-2) for their first win of the year.

"Dundee-Crown likes to play fast and we like to play not quite that fast," Johnson said. "We still were moving but it was a little bit better tempo and we just started getting better shots."

After shooting just 7 of 21 in the first half, the Pirates went 13 of 23 from the field for a 47.6 clip overall and the key was senior point guard Katilin Conklin. Conklin was held to one 3-pointer on 3 shots in the first 16 minutes but exploded for 17 points in the second half, which included 8 in the third and 9 in the fourth, to finish with 20 points. She and leading scorer Ashley Shapiro (23 points, 11 rebounds) combined for 29 of the Pirates' 43 second-half points.

"Katie was a key in the second half," Johnson said. "She really took over, got the game in our tempo."

Down 29-25 with 5 minutes to go in the third, Shapiro cashed in on a 3-point play to cut the D-C lead to 1. On the subsequent possession, Shapiro gave the Pirates the lead on a putback and then Conklin nailed a 3-pointer from the right wing to make it 33-31 Palatine. The run ended on Shapiro's layup off the steal and capped a 12-2 run spanning nearly 3 minutes that got the Pirates back in it. Conklin was perfect on all three of her shots from downtown.

"The third quarter I just started shooting more and found openings," said Conklin, who was 5 of 5 from the foul line and helped the Pirates make 22 of 29 free throws on 24 Charger fouls. "Our intensity just skyrocketed. In the second half we knew we had to pick it up."

D-C, led by Creighton Fed's 12 points, carried a 1-point lead into the fourth but for the second-straight game coughed up a late lead. Conklin's right-wing 3 put Palatine ahead by 6 with 7 minutes left and her dish to Shapiro on the block made sealed matters. The Chargers, who were outrebounded 37-29 and edged in the paint 24-20, saw a vastly different game unfold after they played the passing lanes, forced 8 turnovers and outscored the Pirates 11-4 in the first quarter.

"Even though we didn't do a good job in the first half, we were still up," said Chargers' coach Sarah Miller, who gave credit to Palatine. "We came out with no intensity in the second half; and they did and it was very obvious why they closed the gap. It was very clear they wanted the game more than us. They never gave up."