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Hersey rolls past Elk Grove

Hersey junior Janine Boyan will most like play volleyball in college.

"But it will be hard to stop playing basketball once college rolls around," she said.

Boyan showed how hard it is to stop her when she gets rolling around the basket.

The 6-foot forward scored all 14 of her points in the first half and collected a team-high 8 rebounds as the Huskies remained one game out of first place in the Mid-Suburban East with a 59-33 triumph at Elk Grove on Wednesday night.

"We were just coming off two conference losses so Fend (head coach Mary Fendley) and Barthel (Julia, the assistant) really wanted to have someone to spark that energy in this game," Boyan said. "I really wanted to be that person by rebounding, putting the ball in the basket and getting our team off to a good start."

Her play hardly went unnoticed by Fendley.

"That was her best half," said Fendley whose team (13-9, 4-3) led 36-12 at the break. "Janine is really unselfish so sometimes it's a matter of her just getting more shots off.

"She took opportunities tonight that she has given up, and it paid off. She was able to hit shots. She had a nice reverse and a putback. She did a lot of things we knew she is capable of because we see it every day in practice."

Senior Emily Collins led the Huskies with a game-high 16 points while Mary McGrath and Mary Kate Fahey (three 3-pointers, 5 assists) each chipped in nine.

Also getting in the scoring column for Hersey were Aya El-Fiky (6 rebounds), Maddie Jacobson, Brianna Luciano and Sydney Hemenway.

The Huskies won the first meeting 56-48 over EG.

"Elk Grove really out-scrapped us last time," Fendley said. "This time, I thought we were able to get to loose balls and we had a lot more points in transition. I thought that was probably the biggest difference."

EG (9-12, 3-4) was led by junior guard Megan Murray (9 points) and senior Rachel Kandefer (8).

"I honestly thought we just didn't show up," said EG coach Jen Buxton. "This was not mentally how our girls play. They always come prepared to play hard and this was not that Elk Grove team.

"We have to figure out why that was the case and fix it fast with back-to-back now (Jacobs on Thursday and Rolling Meadows on Friday).

"We still have a lot of goals we want to meet and today was a step backward. But we're hoping we can turn it around and makes some positives the rest of the week."

The Grens are playing without sophomore starter Isabella Tierney (partial torn meniscus).

"Mentally, I thought we might have a setback last Friday with a starter out," Buxton said. "But we pulled together as a team (and defeated Buffalo Grove).

"Isabella is huge part of our scoring but we have a lot of girls who have stepped up during the course of the season.

"We just really took tonight off. We have played better team basketball than we showed. It's unfortunate because this was a really big game for us and Hersey took it to us."

Hersey visits Prospect (13-6, 5-2) in a big MSL East test on Friday.

"Its been hard sitting on that Meadows loss (73-64) the last five days," Fendley said. "We didn't feel we've been playing as well as we could or should and we played really well tonight.

"We did a lot of things really well against Rolling Meadows but obviously not good enough to win. Tonight, some of those things looked a lot better."

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