Aurora Christian rallies by Rosary
When your coach refers to you as "the best rebounder in the state," the standard is set pretty high for Aurora Christian senior Natasha Brown.
She's hitting that standard - and then some.
Brown, who surpassed 1,000 career rebounds earlier this season, grabbed 17 more Thursday in the Eagles' 38-29 come-from-behind win over Rosary.
"If you could find me a girls basketball player who rebounds more tenaciously than Natasha Brown, I would like to see her," Aurora Christian coach Burney Wilkie said.
Brown, averaging 14.5 rebounds a game to lead the area by more than 5 over her closest challenger, is relentless. At 5-feet-8 she isn't the tallest player on the court but is usually the most active.
"I want to do anything I can do to help the team," Brown said. "If I see it off the glass I'm saying in my head, 'I want that ball, that ball is mine.' That is my thought process."
Aurora Christian (15-8, 2-4 in the Suburban Christian Conference) won its second in three meetings with Rosary. The Eagles rallied after Rosary's own hard-nosed senior, Quincy Kellett, got off to a sizzling start.
Kellett scored the first 11 points of the game for Rosary, then assisted for a basket just before the first-quarter buzzer that put the Royals up 13-5.
The highlight of Kellett's early surge came when she leapt out of bounds to save a ball near midcourt, her momentum taking her past the scorer's table. She hustled right back into the play and got the ball back in transition where she scored while being fouled for a three-point play.
Wilkie switched to a zone in the second quarter and it succeeded in slowing Kellett who got into foul trouble in the second half.
"We were allowing a little too much dribble penetration," Wilkie said. "It wasn't necessarily our defender's fault, it was our help-side defenders' fault."
Trailing by as much as 9 points in the second quarter, Aurora Christian closed within 18-16 at halftime by scoring the final 6 points. Carey Tokars found Gabby Galbato on a backdoor cut, and Brown converted a putback.
Rosary still led 24-21 after a low-scoring third quarter, but the tide started to turn when Kellett was whistled for her fourth foul with 2:35 left.
Aurora Christian took the lead 27-24 with back-to-back three-point plays to start the fourth quarter, the first by Tokars and the second by Galbato.
"She's (Tokars) a very capable ballhandler and scorer," Wilkie said. "She made a huge play for us."
Rosary, who made 6 of 12 shots in the first quarter and 6 of 39 (15.3 percent) the next three, got as close as 31-29 on Kellett's free throws with 4:04 left. She fouled out two minutes later, finishing with 14 points while nobody else had more than 4.
Galbato led Aurora Christian with 11 points and Brown had 9.
"I told them in the locker room that was the quintessential team win," Wilkie said.