St. Charles East handles Batavia
St. Charles East's girls basketball team has quite an opportunity Saturday, putting its perfect Upstate Eight Conference River record on the line when it welcomes the River's other unbeaten team, Geneva, to the Saints' home court.
The Saints put themselves in position for the early-season showdown, first by coming from behind to upend St. Charles North last Saturday, and then by taking care of business against feisty Batavia Friday night.
Katie Claussner led four players in double figures with 15 points. The Saints starters combined for 55 points in their 57-46 victory.
"It's going to be an awesome game (against 7-0 Geneva)," said Claussner, who also led on the defensive end with 6 steals. "My sophomore year was first time in 8 years we beat them. I think we are perfect matches for each other."
St. Charles East (7-1, 3-0) never trailed Friday. On Batavia's first possession the Bulldogs tried to get the ball inside to Hannah Frazier only to see Saints freshman Sara Rosenfeldt tip the pass away for the first of 24 Bulldog turnovers.
Rosenfeldt ended up nearly matching Frazier, finishing with 12 points, 6 rebounds and 3 steals to Frazier's 14 points and 9 boards.
"Hannah is a great player and she's been playing really great so it was a big challenge for me to get around her and play defense," Rosenfeldt said. "It was a challenge."
Batavia (5-5, 3-2) tied the game just twice. After the Saints surged to a 9-2 lead, the Bulldogs scored 7 in a row including a Bethany Orman 3-point basket and a Mackenzie Foster pullup jumper.
Emily Lasse knotted the score a final time at 11 with two free throws to open the second quarter. The Saints responded with the next 11 points, a run started by Kelly Rinker nailing a 3, then a baseline jumper from Hannah Vitkus and six points from Rosenfeldt.
Down 22-11 at that point Batavia settled in and played the Saints even the rest of the way. Trailing 30-19 at halftime and by as much as 38-23 in the third quarter, Foster helped the Bulldogs pull within 40-34 with a couple hard drives through traffic, and then an acrobatic finish while getting fouled.
The Saints pushed right back, this time with a pair of Kyra Washington 3-pointers that extended the lead back to 48-38 after three quarters.
"We kind of lost her in transition once and the other we lost her off a screen," Batavia coach Kevin Jensen said. "It's not that we aren't playing hard enough, it's that we aren't playing correct enough. We're getting better at things."
Frazier flashed her ballhandling skills to convert a layup and get Batavia as close as 53-46 with three minutes left.
The Saints used some pretty passing to seal the win, spreading the floor and twice getting wide-open lay-ins. The first came when Washington found Vitkus, then on the next possession Sam Munroe assisted Vitkus.
"Their defense was all over us, press after press," Claussner said. "The key to that is staying calm, moving the ball around and I think that's what allowed us to break the press and get easy buckets."
Rinker and Vitkus both finished with 10 points and Washington's 8 just missed all five starters reaching double figures. They also were balanced rebounding with four players grabbing at least 5.
"Batavia plays hard and it's hard to play in this gym," Saints coach Lori Drumtra said. "We talked about that before this game. When I saw the students coming in and we talked about drowning that out. They can get in your head, the band is playing, it's a tough environment to play in. I thought we did a good job at (playing through) that."
Foster added 14 points for Batavia.
"She did a real nice job taking the ball inside and getting a nice squared up layup instead of some of the out-of-control ones," Jensen said. "That helped us. That was a big spark for us."