Slow start costs Batavia at Trinity
The toughest part about Batavia's trek to River Forest to face Trinity Friday night might not solely have been the fact that the host Blazers are a top-10 state ranked girls basketball team.
While it is true that the Bulldogs (1-2) dropped a 64-41 decision to the host team in its inaugural Thanksgiving tournament, there were other mitigating circumstances that worked against the visitors.
“I told the girls that I was kind of disappointed in the way we came out and with our competitiveness in the first quarter,” said Batavia coach Kevin Jensen, whose team trailed 14-5 after 8 minutes. “But we sat on a bus in traffic for two hours to get here. That's my fault — I didn't get us going earlier.”
Employing a stifling full-court press, the Blazers forced 12 first-quarter turnovers and turned them into 5 layups at the offensive end.
“We did make some mistakes but that's going to happen,” said 6-foot-2 junior center Hannah Frazier, who led the Bulldogs with 15 points, 10 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 assists and a blocked shot. “A lot of these girls are newcomers on varsity. I thought they all stepped up and played pretty well.”
Junior guard Annie McKenna paced the Blazers with 15 points and a team-high 5 steals while junior center Kaitlyn Aylward added 10 points and 5 rebounds.
“This is one of the best teams in the state,” Frazier said of Trinity. “If we want to get to that level, this shows us where we're at.”
“It just took us a little while to wake up,” added Jensen. “I'm not sure if it is right or wrong but this early in the year I'm not going to bail them out with a timeout. We're going to suck it up and play to the speed level. We're going to get better because of it.”
After a pair of free throws from Frazier trimmed the deficit to 16-7, the Blazers went on a 10-0 run fueled by a 3-pointer by Patricia Stritzel and 2 close-range baskets by Aylward to extend their margin to 26-7.
Trinity led 32-16 at halftime despite solid first-half contributions from Frazier (7 points, 6 rebounds) and junior guard Bethany Orman (5 points, 5 rebounds, 3 steals).
Orman finished with 8 points while Madeline Slater and Shea Bayram added 7 and 6 points, respectively.
“As the game went on, we kept playing harder and we settled down a little bit,” said Jensen. “There were a lot of positives. There are things to fix, too, but it's not something where we go off feeling awful about ourselves.”
Despite facing double-team defense much of the way, Frazier displayed a tenacity that helped her get to the free-throw line 14 times.
“I think that's going to be a huge part of things especially when I don't get open shots,” she said. “I've got to take advantage of the opportunities.”
“I have no idea what some of Hannah's stats were but I thought she did things that I hadn't seen as a freshman or sophomore,” said Jensen. “She really fought hard whereas a freshman and sophomore she would have been a little timid and she would have been able to get away with it because she had another stud (Liza Fruendt) with her.”