Wheaton North turns to fresh faces at shootout

Wheaton North went young - younger, actually - out of necessity Saturday afternoon at Coach Kipp's Hoopsfest at Willowbrook.

With leading scorer Nikki Baird, a Belmont University recruit, sidelined by a foot injury and sophomore Ellie Hubbard out with an MCL injury, the Falcons turned to some new faces for help.

New Trier took advantage for a 62-42 victory against the Falcons in Villa Park.

"Any time that you take 18.5 points off the floor and a senior at 6-foot-2 can shoot it and stretch the defense a little bit more, it hurts," said Falcons coach Dave Eaton, who hopes to get Baird back Thursday. "And then losing Ellie Hubbard ... those are our two leading minutes kids. So it hurts."

Freshman Claire Hyde continued to impress by leading the Falcons (14-4) with 15 points. Taite Ryan matched that number to lead New Trier (17-4).

"It kinda shows that when our best players aren't out there we kinda need to step up, come together as a team," Hyde said. "I thought we played OK today. A lot of people showed their talents and it just wasn't working for us. But you're going to pop into a role that you may not think you'd be in, and I thought a lot of people did that tonight, and we executed. Shots weren't always falling. We weren't getting every rebound, but I thought everybody was stepping up and just playing their part."

At times all five Falcons on the floor were underclassmen.

"My coaches, they don't really look at freshman, sophomore," Hyde said. "We're all kinda just one big team. We do it together, we go through everything together. It really shows."

Wheaton North led 8-5 after freshman Ally Brown, making her varsity debut, converted a pair of free throws.

But New Trier took off from there. The Trevians scored the final 13 points of the first quarter. By halftime New Trier led 37-15.

"It's just about getting better," Eaton said.