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Bolingbrook outlasts Kampschroeder, Naperville North

News flash: That Naperville North sophomore Greta Kampschroeder is a pretty good player.

Bolingbrook girls basketball coach Chris Smith realized this coming into the Raiders' contest with the Huskies on Wednesday in the first round of the 2018 Benet/Naperville North Holiday Tournament.

So he and his staff planned for it. Sort of.

"Greta's a different player," Smith said. "She's a matchup problem, so it was kind of what we expected. Our goal coming in, we joked about it, we would let her score 20 and limit everybody else and win the game."

That's exactly what happened.

Playing in front of scouts from Purdue and Michigan State, the 5-foot-11 Kampschroeder scored a game-high 24 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, all the while facing constant double-teams and the occasional triple-team. But no teammate scored more than 5, and the Huskies fell 50-39.

It wasn't all bad news. Naperville North essentially played even with Bolingbrook for the first two-and-a-half quarters before the Raiders put together a 12-2 run. That staggered the Huskies, for sure, but they righted things and pulled to within 36-29 with 5:45 to go - on a jumper and a pair of free throws by Kampschroeder.

But Bolingbrook responded with a 9-2 spurt that put the game away.

"I know we have the ability to come back in those games," Kampschroeder said. "I've seen it before in college, the NBA and high school, so we've got believe that we can be able to come back from being down."

Naperville North coach Jason Dycus had just as many glowing things to say about his star as Smith did.

"She's a complete player," Dycus said. "She is somebody I can play in the post, she's somebody I can play on the perimeter, she's a great passer. I wish some of our girls would be ready for her passes, to be quite honest. She's such a great player, they're not always ready for it, and they need to be ready for it. She's dynamic that way."

Kampschroeder's performance aside, the big bugaboo for Naperville North was the dreaded turnover. They racked up 27 of them, 19 in the first half.

Can't do that against a fast, strong, physical opponent - even if you hold them to 32 percent shooting from the field.

"We turned the ball over way too much against a state-caliber team, and you can't do that," Dycus said. "They're very athletic, but we've got to handle it better."

Truth be told, though, the Raiders (6-2) have a lot of talent. They placed three players in double figures: Danyel Middleton scored 17 points, Treasure Thompson 15 and Jayden Marable 12. Thompson was effective in the paint, grabbing 11 of her team's 19 rebounds.

But the Raiders also were missing two starters.

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