Huntley closes out Kenwood
The Huntley girls basketball team has spent considerable time in recent weeks focusing on protecting leads and finishing games.
That focus continued to pay dividends for the Red Raiders on Sunday in their 55-44 win over Kenwood Academy of Chicago in the Chicagoland Invitational Showcase at Fremd High School in Palatine.
"I'm real pleased with our effort in terms of staying disciplined and containing (Kenwood) defensively," said Huntley coach Steve Raethz. "I'm really proud of all 13 players today. We got a lot of contributions from everybody. It was another situation where we got pushed and we did a nice job of responding. I'm just real pleased with the way we played for 32 minutes."
Juniors Ali Andrews and Kayla Barreto led the way for Huntley (12-4), which won for the 9th time in its last 10 games. Andrews scored a game-high 23 points, 15 of them in the first half, and Barreto added 17, just 1 short of her career-high. The 5-foot-2 point guard not only did a stellar job of running the offense, she hit 8 of 10 free throws including 6 of 8 in the fourth quarter when the Red Raiders were able to pull away.
"The past six weeks we've been working so hard in practice," Barreto said. "We've had people down and then lost it in the fourth quarter. We know we have to maintain our effort for 32 minutes and we did really well today."
Barreto has also stepped more into a scoring role this season, something she hasn't had to do in her first two years on Huntley's varsity.
"Since freshman year I haven't had to play that role," she said of scoring. "This year I know I have to help Ali and step up and score more."
Huntley opened up as much as a 12-point lead at 23-11 early in the second quarter and still led 27-16 after senior Kaitlin Constantino split a pair of free throws with 2:48 left in the half. But Kenwood (12-6) fought back and went on a 9-1 run to end the second quarter and trail just 28-25 at intermission.
Again in the third quarter, the Red Raiders were able to stretch the lead to 8, 38-30, after a putback basket from junior Paige Renkosik with 4:04 left in the period but Kenwood battled back and trailed just 38-34 after three. Defense won out in the third quarter as neither team scored in the final 3:16.
Huntley put the win away from the free throw line in the first minute-plus of the fourth quarter. With Kenwood's overly aggressive defense collecting foul call after foul call, Andrews, sophomore Madeline Moffet and Barreto went 6-for-6 from the free throw line in the first 1:07 of the final period to give the Raiders a 44-34 lead. Kenwood would not get closer than 7 the rest of the way.
"She's really coming into her own this year running our team," said Raethz of Barreto. "She's doing a fantastic job of handling the pressure."
The Red Raiders also got key contributions in the fourth quarter from sophomore Abbey Brown, whose layup with 4:05 left in the game and 2 free throws with 2:58 to go boosted Huntley's lead back to 10 points each time.
Huntley shot 13 of 36 for the game and while the Raiders did commit 20 turnovers, only 3 came in the fourth quarter. They also outrebounded the Broncos 28-25, led by 5 from Andrews, who also had 5 steals, 2 assists and 2 blocks.
"We've been working really hard to get tough with the ball and take care of the ball," said Andrews, the Illinois recruit who now has 1,450 career points and is 15 points shy of catching her sister, Sam, as the program's second all-time leading scorer (Sam Mader's 1,655 is the all-time Huntley record).
The win also bodes well for Huntley's confidence heading into a Fox Valley Conference Valley Division showdown with Crystal Lake South Tuesday in Huntley. Each team is undefeated in division play.
"(Kenwood) was really good competition," Andrews said. "We knew we had to come out here today and play strong to get ready for (Tuesday)."