Defense, rebounding key Lisle victory

When she looked at the scoreboard late in the second quarter and saw her team had a shutout going, Lisle senior Leah Reeves had just one thought.

"I was just hoping that we could keep it, that they wouldn't score at all," Reeves said.

Lisle kept Westmont scoreless for the game's first 15 minutes, cruising to a 32-19 Interstate Eight Conference girls basketball victory Friday night at Lisle.

"We were so bad early on," Westmont coach Mike McCord said. "But a couple of our looks weren't bad, it was just that we couldn't score. And we don't rebound well enough against that type of team."

Rebounding was a big reason that Lisle led 20-0 when junior Amanda Prete scored Westmont's first basket with 54.9 seconds left in the second quarter. Westmont grabbed just 1 offensive rebound in the first half, and the Lions outrebounded the Sentinels 31-17 for the game.

"It was different in the second half, but in that first half I don't think they got very many second shots," Lisle coach Nick Balaban said. "It was pretty much one shot and done for them."

"Our coach told us before the game that we really needed to make sure that we box out well and attack the boards hard, especially against a 2-3 zone," Reeves said, "and that's definitely what we did."

Lisle (14-7, 7-1) led 20-5 at halftime after Westmont senior Mara Casper hit a 3-pointer.

"We played that half as well as you could play it except for those two breakdowns at the end," Balaban said.

Westmont - playing without second-leading scorer AnneMarie Carlson because of an ankle injury - cut into the Lisle lead a little in the second half, scoring 11 fourth-quarter points. But the Sentinels never got closer than 11 points.

"I think we might have gotten a little too comfortable and we let it go a little bit, but we got it back at the end," Reeves said.

"You've got to give (the Sentinels) credit, they packed it in on us in the second half," Balaban added. "We couldn't get anything inside, and we didn't shoot well from the perimeter. that kept them in the game. Yeah, it was a good thing we got off to that good start. It gave us enough of a cushion to finish it out."

The teams could meet again in the conference tournament or at the Class 2A Aurora Christian regional.

"I was happy," McCord said. "Obviously, I wasn't happy at the start. I said to the girls if we're going to lose one to Lisle this year, this is the one to lose."

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