South Elgin clamps down on McHenry
Buyer beware: If the South Elgin's girls basketball team ever struggles on offense the rest of the season, don't count the Storm out to make up for it mightily on defense.
The Storm showed one of the many ways it can beat teams this season during its 58-39 win over McHenry at the Dundee-Crown Thanksgiving Tournament Friday night in Carpentersville.
Despite shooting 9 for 32 in the first half and 33.3 percent overall on 21 of 63 shots, the Storm (2-0) took a 29-17 lead into the half with the case in point being the turnovers it helped create.
"They know we're going to trap, we're going full court and it's defense first," Storm coach Dan Mandernack said. "As long as your playing defense and rebounding, we're going to be in most games."
McHenry (1-1) committed 27 turnovers to South Elgin's 11 and was 17 of 41 from the field, as guard Kennedy Wells and center Mackie Kelleher each had 4 steals. The Storm press did its job in the first half and created all sorts of havoc, as 16 McHenry turnovers led to easy baskets like Casey Brennan's steal and layup and Teagan Pompa's 3-pointer from the left wing late in the first quarter for an 11-7 lead.
Kelleher was also busy on the boards, mainly on second-chance putbacks, scoring 4 of her game-high 16 points to go along with 8 rebounds. One of her 4 offensive rebounds helped South Elgin to a 20-13 lead with 4:12 left in the second quarter, the onset of an 11-4 run to end the half.
"After I got that offensive rebound we kind of got our momentum going," Kelleher said. "We know it's the second game and we're going to miss bunnies and miss shots but once the shots start falling it's going to give us some good leads."
The Storm upped the lead to as much as 21 in the fourth. Brennan finished with 9 points off the bench while Pompa and Grace Franks each poured in 8 points. Pompa, who hit five 3-pointers in a win against Dundee-Crown on Wednesday, drained only two on 3 of 11 shooting from the field. But the senior guard wasn't shy about why the Storm offense wasn't clicking throughout.
"We just came out flat," Pompa admitted. "You have those nights every once in a while - we had a great shooting night against Dundee-Crown - but it just happens. But when we have a good defense to fall back on it's really easy to have bad shooting nights and win games."
Warriors forward Elizabeth Alsot had a double-double with a team-high 12 points and 10 rebounds while Avalon Henderson added 9 points. McHenry led at one point 6-3 early in the first quarter but was outscored 55-33 the final 26 minutes.