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Yorkville hands Kaneland 2nd straight loss

Despite Jamie Martens' extraordinary efforts Thursday night, the Kaneland girls basketball team could not match the one-two punch Yorkville delivered.

Martens, the all-time Kaneland leader in assists, had to shoulder much of the scoring load in the Knights' critical Northern Illinois Big XII East game against Yorkville.

The senior southpaw dazzled the Foxes with an array of driving and slashing moves to score a season- and game-high 24 points.

But Yorkville, the two-time defending league champion, had too much as senior teammates Lauren Daffenberg and Lindsay Harrison scored 18 points each in leading the Foxes to a 58-48 victory.

The Knights' leading scorer, guard Jenni Weber, was saddled with foul troubles for much of the contest.

Weber fouled out in the waning moments after being limited to 5 points.

"Jenni Weber is very capable of scoring," Yorkville coach Kim Wensits said. "Our focus was on Jenni. We didn't want to give her anything easy."

In avenging losses in the teams' meeting in Maple Park as well as a holiday tournament in Ottawa, Yorkville is 16-5 overall, 8-2 in the league.

Kaneland fell to 16-4, 7-3.

Sycamore, whom the Knights lost to earlier this week, also had two conference losses entering the evening.

Harrison had consecutive field goals to close out the first quarter for Yorkville.

The Knights never tied the game or took the lead again as Yorkville extended its 2-point lead to a 29-19 halftime advantage after converting 14-for-27 field goals in the first two quarters.

"They hit shots," Kaneland coach Ernie Colombe said. "It wasn't for a lack of (defensive) effort. They're a good team. We have played them three times and beaten them twice."

The Knights' first-half deficit would have been far more punitive had Martens not hit back-to-back one-handed runners in the paint to close out the final two Kaneland possessions before the intermission.

It was only an offensive harbinger of things to come for Kaneland in the second half.

Martens extended her personal team run to 7 points with a 3-pointer to open the third quarter.

The uncommitted Martens accounted for more than 50 percent of the Knights' output after scoring the first 8 points for Kaneland the in the fourth quarter.

"We knew we had to keep attacking them," Martens said of missing Weber. "We were trying to get the (foul) bonus in our favor for later in the game. (Daffenberg and Harrison) are really good athletes. Overall, I thought we did a pretty good job (on them). We had girls who were assigned to stop them."

"(Martens) has come a long way," Wensits said.

With Weber being held 12 points below her season average, the Knights' Hannah Armin hit two 3-pointers in adding 8 points.

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