St. Francis falters in fourth quarter of fast-paced game

St. Francis just ran out of gas, plain and simple.

Latin turned a double-digit deficit near the end of the third quarter into an 84-76 victory over the Spartans at the Lisle Holiday Cage Classic. The teams set a tournament record for most combined points in a game.

"I think that as a team we started to get a little bit tired," Spartans senior Shelby Winkelman said. "We need to slow it down on offense and that's where we can get our breaks in. I think we just kept pushing a little bit too hard because it was such an intense game."

Lisle took a 68-57 lead with 15 seconds left in the third period on a Winkelman 3-pointer from the corner. But after taking the Romans' best shot for most of the fast-paced game, the Spartans visibly lacked the energy to fight off another Latin run in the fourth quarter. After scoring at least 21 points in each of the first three periods, St. Francis scored just 8 in the fourth.

"At practice we're always pushing, pressing, making sure that we're used to it, but we had a certain six or seven (players) in that after a while, it gets a little much," Winkelman said.

The 76 points were a season high for the Spartans, who made 32 of 45 free throws.

Antwainette Walker led the Spartans with 30 points and 9 rebounds. Winkelman scored 22 points and freshman Katelin Chaparro added 13.

"Shelby definitely came out hot for us in the first quarter," Spartans coach Melissa Taylor said. "... That takes some of the pressure off of Antwainette."

Latin senior Jade Edwards set another tournament record with 45 points. She also had 9 rebounds, 6 steals and 5 blocked shots.

"She was pretty tough," Winkelman said. "After a while I started to get a feel of how she played, what their runs were, but at the same point she was a phenomenal player."

"(Edwards) is a great player, and she definitely knows how to attack," Taylor added, "and unfortunately our help side wasn't there to stop her."