Angelova's career game carries Buffalo Grove over St. Viator
Buffalo Grove's girls basketball team was on its game Saturday afternoon.
And so was its junior forward Zori Angelova, who exploded for a career-high 19 points as the Bison led most of the way in a 57-49 nonconference triumph at St. Viator.
"It was a complete team win," said Bison coach Steve Kolodziej, whose club improved to 15-10. "If we play like that, we're going to be a tough team to rule out of this thing (state playoffs) come (three) weeks from now."
The 5-foot-11 Angelova was tough on the boards, too, pulling down 8 while easily shattering her career-high of 7 points as a sophomore.
"Zori is a heck of basketball player," Kolodziej added. "It's just a matter of confidence with her. You see that first shot go through, and then the second, and things start to feel real good. She rebounded well and did a lot of other things well."
"It was great to see Zori (three 3-pointers) go out and just absolutely light it up," said Bison senior guard Jackie Bickhaus. "We've always taken pride in her work ethic, so for her to demonstrate it in this game was great for everyone."
Bickhaus has also shown a strong work ethic, battling an injury all season.
"I was proud of our senior leadership coming through today from Jackie," Kolodziej said. "She has had a lot of adversity that a lot of people don't know about, playing with a broken hand all season and she has embraced some changes and I couldn't be more happy for her.
"And we had Sydney (Fortman) leading, too, She does all the little things so well. When we share the basketball we're a pretty tough team."
Bickhaus' beautiful entry pass to Kendra Lee resulted in a layup that gave BG a 51-44 lead with 2:20 left in the game. BG went into a four-corners offense and never let Viator (18-6) closer than 5 points.
Lee finished 13 points, netting 9 in the final eight minutes.
Megan Fontanetta (8 points) hit a pair of big 3-pointers and Macy Floro added 7 points including a 3-pointer in the final period that gave BG the lead for good at 46-44.
It came just after Joy Bergstrom (16 points) put Viator ahead 44-43. The freshman stole an inbounds pass almost out of the Bison's hands, and quickly spun around for a nifty reverse layup with 6:10 left in the game.
"We lost their No. 22 (Bergstrom) a few times in transition," Kolodziej said. "They're a good basketball team."
The Lions' biggest deficit was 19-10 but they tied it at 21-21 when Elise Horbach took a beautiful no-look pass from Payton McDonnell to score a layup. They took a brief lead at 23-21 on a driving layup through the lane by sophomore Anna Morrisey (7 points).
Horbach was one of six Lions honored for Senior Night, including Cara Denten, McDonnell, Sam DeJulio, Bridget DeZellar and Natalie Krause, who hit three big 3-pointers in the second half.
"We were out of sync for most of the game, especially defensively," said Lions coach Jason Raymond. "BG played a big part of that. I thought they did a great job of changing up defenses and speeding us up a little offensively.
"Steve (Kolodziej) does a tremendous job with them. They're kind of a team that has grown up on the varsity level."
The Lions committed 16 turnovers to eight by BG.
"We were never really able to set our press up," Raymond said. "Usually that's what we do to the other team, and they did it to us for most of the game."