Prospect stays perfect by topping Buffalo Grove

Prospect won its first Mid-Suburban East girls basketball game last week with only three players scoring against an undefeated Hersey team.

Going up against another undefeated team in its second conference game on Thursday night, the Knights were hoping for a little more offensive balance.

Sure enough, they doubled their fun.

This time, six girls made it into the scoring column as Prospect handed visiting Buffalo Grove its first loss 45-32 at the Jean Walker Field House.

Despite picking up her third foul with two minutes left in the first half and her fourth with 4:15 left in the third, senior Catherine Sherwood led the ever-so-balanced Knights (7-0, 2-0) with 10 points.

Next came Haley Will (8), Nikki Matters (8), Taylor Will (7), Brenda Kendziera (7) and Clare O'Carroll (5).

"This was really awesome because only three players scored against Hersey," Sherwood said. "So we had talked about how others people had to step up and score. It was really good to see that."

No one was able to score for almost five minutes.

BG junior Maddie Welter hit a 3-point with 3:04 left in the first quarter to make it 3-0.

A 3-pointer by Taylor Will evened the score at 5-5 after one period and the Knights secured a 15-10 lead at intermission.

"Sammy (Stejskal) played real good defense on me," said Will, who was honored before the game for becoming the school's all-time leading scorer in girls basketball (she now has 1,381 points). "I give her credit. My teammates all stepped up and scored. It was great."

Taylor Will's 2 free throw gave Prospect a 14-7 lead and one by O'Carroll made it 15-7 before Natali Dimitrova's 3-point-play got the Bison (7-1, 1-1) to within 15-10 at the break.

BG used four 3-pointers in the third quarter (two by Maddie Callahan and one apiece from Welter and Julie Jambrone) to keep things interesting.

Back-to-back 3-pointers by Jambrone and Welter gave BG a short-lived 21-19 lead before Haley Will answered with 3-pointer to ignite a 10-0 run.

The game-changing run included rebound layups by Matters and O'Carroll and a 3-pointer by Kendziera.

"We talked about balance," said Prospect coach Ashley Graham. "Brenda hit some big shots. Nikki has been outstanding. Haley has been doing a great job with penetrating and Taylor and Catherine are so strong offensively.

"I'm really proud of Clare off the bench. She was huge offensively with rebounds and putbacks. To get that production was great especially with Catherine in foul trouble."

Sherwood played the final quarter with 4 fouls and had two big buckets.

"I was very frustrated with the fouls in the first half but my coaches and teammate just told me to shake it off," Sherwood said. "They told me I'd been in that situation before. So I just took that encouragement and used my frustration to stay strong and I knew everyone else was scoring."

"I'm really proud of her (Sherwood)," Graham added. "Things didn't go her way but she handled it with a lot of maturity. Every time she had to make a defensive play, she got it done and just got smarter as the game went along."

Leading the Bison were Callahan (9 points), Jambrone (8) and Welter (6).

"It comes down to the little things," said BG coach Steve Kolodziej. "We didn't rebound defensively and we didn't convert on the opportunities we had.

"We've got to hand it to Prospect. They did a good job with the opportunities that were there.

"We talk all the time about defense wins championships We played defense but we just couldn't find ways to score."