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Timothy Christian leaves Fenton behind

Timothy Christian has a bad habit of getting off to slow starts.

It happened again Saturday night when the Trojans fell behind Fenton in the first quarter of Metro Suburban Conference crossover girls basketball game in Bensenville.

But Timothy Christian coach Michele Strube was never worried about the outcome. Neither were her players, who dominated the final three quarters en route to a 50-25 victory.

"Unfortunately, we do this a lot," Strube said. "I think we usually have 2 or 3 turnovers right from the beginning."

This time the Trojans (11-14) actually took a 4-0 lead, only to see the host Bison (2-20) go on a 9-2 run to take a 3-point lead. Krysta Wilson sank back-to-back 3-pointers and Amari Benbow followed by splitting a pair of free throws and scoring on a layup.

That seemed to wake up Timothy, which got its inside game going. Ava Venema scored on a putback to tie the game, and fellow center Emily DeBoer did the same after Benbow's layup briefly gave Fenton its last lead.

"Persistence (was the key)," Strube said. "They keep with it; they don't give up.

"They know they have to keep shooting and keep going inside. We have a really nice inside game, so the girls did a good job using that, and today there was a lot of patience."

Senior guard Olivia Hoekstra scored on a layup with 19 seconds remaining in the first quarter to give the Trojans a 13-11 lead, and the visitors never trailed again.

"I just knew we had to step up our defense," Hoekstra said. "We kind of started out kind of slowly and we were just kind of groggy.

"We had to get into it. Our bigs had to make some shots, and I think that really helped when we started driving and making our shots."

Hoekstra scored 8 of her game-high 11 points in the first half. Olivia Schuringa added 10 points, including the layup that gave Timothy the lead for good at 15-13.

Schuringa had 6 points in the second half as the Trojans closed the game with a 25-5 run, shutting out the Bison in the fourth quarter.

"(The Trojans) usually do really well on defense," Strube said. "We knew we could go into man, which we did. We knew we had the 1-3-1 we could do, so that kind of stops the outside shooting."

Indeed, the Bison made only 2 baskets after halftime.

"We've been playing much, much better," Fenton coach Tim Anderson said. "What you saw in the first quarter is how we've been playing.

"We had some good looks in the second half even though we were playing catch-up and it just compounds. We don't have enough firepower to come roaring back when we're down that far, but the kids played hard."

Wilson paced Fenton with 8 points, while Benbow and Mackenzie Miller each added 7.

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