Jakubicek, Cary-Grove top South Elgin
There is a reason Cary-Grove senior Claire Jakubicek will be playing collegiately at Northern Illinois University.
She can score in many different ways.
Scoring inside and outside, Jakubicek tallied 21 points to help the Trojans defeat South Elgin 64-39 in a first round game of the Dundee-Crown Thanksgiving Tournament Wednesday night in Carpenstersville.
“We had no answer for Claire, “ said South Elgin coach Tim Prendergast. “She is a great scorer and we couldn't stop her.”
Jakubicek also grabbed 9 rebounds, dished out 4 assists and had 3 steals as the Trojans moved to 2-0 on the young 2010-2011 campaign.
‘This team is so much fun to play with,” said Jakubicek. “Everybody gets along and it doesn't matter who scores. We just want to win.”
The Trojans also got a stellar effort from senior guard Meg Straumann, who missed the second half of last season with an ACL injury. Straumann scored 10 points with 6 assists and 4 steals.
“She is pretty close to 100 percent,” said Cary-Grove coach Rod Saffert. “She is sore after games and practices, but she is such a tough and amazing kid and doesn't complain. We certainly missed her leadership at the end of last season.”
Cary-Grove, holding a slim 14-11 lead after 8 minutes, busted the game open in the second quarter.
With Jakubicek scoring 5 points, the Trojans outscored the Storm 9-2 and led 23-13 with 5:22 remaining in the first half.
The Trojans, who outscored South Elgin 18-7 in the second quarter led 32-18 at halftime.
With Savanah Uvegas canning a 3-pointer and Becca Smith converting a layup, the Storm scored the first 5 points of the second half to slice the Trojan lead to 32-23 early in the third quarter.
South Elgin didn't get any closer.
Cary-Grove responded with 7 straight points to seize control of the game with a 16-point 39-23 advantage.
Backing up Jakubicek and Straumann for the Trojans was Paige Lincicum with 10 points and Olivia Jakubicek scored 8 points.
With only 8 players on the roster, Saffert likes the rotation.
“People make a big deal of us having only eight kids, but we can give the kids a lot of reps in practice and the kids get more playing time in games,” said the Cary-Grove coach. “We have a good chemistry with the kids we have.”
Smith was the lone South Elgin player in double figures with 16 points before fouling out with 3:14 left in the game. She now has 982 career points.
“We certainly had some first-game jitters,” said Prendergast. “We missed a lot of easy shots and layups. We need to learn from this.”
Streamwood 55, Dundee-Crown 45: Michelle Tomczak scored 16 points and Emma Schmidt added 14 as Streamwood opened the season with a win at the D-C tournament. Schmidt now has 930 career points. Jessica Cerda added 11 points for the Sabres and Deja Moore had 8. Ali Sanders led the Chargers (0-2) with 13 points, Dana Ewert scored 12 and Carlin Faulkner had 10.
Hall Township 58, Larkin 28: Maggie Hoffman and Jill Casebeer each scored 8 points to lead the Royals in their season-opening loss at the Oregon tournament.
Latin 51, Elgin Academy 25: Ashley Barned had 15 points to lead the Hilltoppers in this Independent School League loss to open the season.
Women's basketball
Ashford 63, Judson 55: Freshman Hailey Cnota (Jacobs) led Judson with 14 points in the Eagles' fourth straight loss to open the season.