Streamwood downs West Chicago
After letting what it thought was a potential win slip through its fingers at Bartlett Tuesday night, the Streamwood girls basketball team was determined to right the ship Wednesday against West Chicago.
And that the Sabres did, overcoming an early 8-2 deficit to run away with the Wildcats, 46-29, in an Upstate Eight Conference River Division game at Streamwood.
"We needed a win," said Streamwood coach George Rosner. "We had a little rough start but then we regrouped."
That happened when the Sabres (5-13, 3-3) realized they could exploit their inside game by getting the basketball into the hands of 6-foot-2 sophomore Jenejha Williams.
Williams scored the final basket of the first quarter to give Streamwood a 15-10 lead, then added 6 of her 13 points in the second quarter, 4 of them from the free-throw line, as the Sabres stretched their lead to 27-15 by halftime.
"I encouraged them to get the ball to her," said Rosner of Williams, who also had a game-high 13 rebounds. "When we were all over the place we had to get the ball inside to her. And, we hit some 3s."
With Williams in charge in the paint, the perimeter opened up for the Sabres, who made four 3-pointers, including 2 from junior Rachel Clark.
Junior point guard Kianah Jeremiah matched Williams with 13 points for the Sabres, scoring 9 in the fourth quarter, when Streamwood never let the Wildcats (6-12, 2-4) get closer than 13 points.
"We had to start realizing that Jenejah had a big size mismatch and Maddie (Exline) and Cayla (Hawkins) hitting a couple outside shots sparked our motivation," said Jeremiah, who had 4 steals as Streamwood's pressure contributed to 28 West Chicago turnovers.
"Hopefully this will push us and motivate us to get two more wins this week. None of us were happy with the outcome (Tuesday) night and we wanted to come out strong tonight and get a win."
Freshman Tamia Brown also scored 6 points for the Sabres, who made 17 of their 43 field goal attempts and outrebounded the Wildcats 33-25.
Junior Bria Williams led West Chicago off the bench with 8 points and 5 rebounds. Senior Mae Elizabeth Gimre and junior Kathy Quiroz each had 6 points for the Wildcats, who were just 12 of 41 shooting.
"We just couldn't get anything to go right," said West Chicago coach Kim Wallner. "Turnovers killed us. Teams make adjustments and we tend not to make adjustments. They did some things different defensively and we never got into any kind of a rhythm. We just didn't adjust to their pressure and it snowballed on us."
Geneva 92, Larkin 53: Marlee Kyles had 19 points and Quixmia Washington added 14 for Larkin (4-14, 1-5) in its Upstate Eight River loss to the Vikings.