St. Charles North turns up pressure, stymies St. Charles East
Launi Chanthaboury provided just the spark St. Charles North needed Friday night to get a much-needed win over their rival St. Charles East.
With the Saints up by 7 points and holding for the last shot in the third quarter, Chanthaboury stole the ball and was fouled.
She made one of the free throws, and her aggressive pressure defense carried over to the fourth quarter and spread to her teammates. The North Stars forced 9 Saints turnovers in the final quarter, the key to their 43-36 come-from-behind win.
Chanthaboury finished with 5 steals.
"All week in practice we just talked about pressure, pressure," Chanthaboury said. "We know they have an elite player inside (senior Sara Rosenfeldt) so I wanted to do all I could to prevent it. I just turned the ball pressure up."
The North Stars (4-3, 1-1 in the Upstate Eight Conference River) played zone for most of the first three quarters.
Up 30-23 late in the third, Saints coach Aubree Schuett called timeout to set up the final shot. North Stars coach Mike Tomczak switched to a pressure man coming out of the timeout, and Chanthaboury made that move pay off with her steal.
St. Charles North kept the ball pressure going in the fourth, forcing turnovers on the Saints' first four possessions.
On the offensive end, Anna Davern scored in the lane, Emma Helsel assisted Anna Tate for a basket and Davern nailed a 3 to put the North Stars up 31-30 - their first lead since 5-2.
"That half-court man pressure looked so good it kind of propelled us into the fourth quarter," Tomczak said. "We just rolled it as far as I could.
"It's amazing what you can do when you start playing with confidence and I think that play at the end of the third quarter kind of springboarded us."
Rosenfeldt scored inside to end a 10-0 North Stars run and bring the Saints within 33-32 with 4:10 left.
The North Stars, who made 6 of 9 from the field in the fourth quarter after shooting just 8 for 26 in the first three, quickly extended its lead to 40-32 on Tate's basket, a steal and layup by Chanthaboury, and two free throws by Chanthaboury after yet another steal.
"Our guards were amazing pressuring," said Davern, who put the exclamation point on the win with a breakaway layup at the buzzer.
For all the turnovers in the fourth, the Saints had just 1 at halftime while building a 23-15 lead.
The Saints (1-5, 0-1) were the aggressor in the first half. Ashley DiOrio and Alexis Kiefer's back-to-back steals and layups gave the Saints their biggest lead, 23-13.
Davern led all scorers with 15 points, and Chanthaboury and Megan Gunnink both scored 9. Along with Tate and Caroline Jakaitis, Davern battled Rosenfeldt inside.
"Sara is super strong and we knew that coming in so we were ready for it," said Davern, part of a senior class that had not beat the Saints. "All the posts, everyone was banging around and everyone stayed so tough that whole game."
Rosenfeldt scored 13 points and Kiefer finished with 12.
"Even though we are six games in, we are still an inexperienced team although they are seniors," Schuett said. "We saw that same kind of pressure at Schaumburg (tournament) against Evanston and Stevenson and we worked on it.
"I'm super disappointed and I know they are too. In order to grow you have to take hits like this. We will figure it out."