Benet's Schramek tops 1,000 mark against Bartlett
As much as the Schramek family enjoys Thanksgiving, the day after is pretty special also.
Benet senior forward Brooke Schramek passed the 1,000-point milestone Friday, leading the Redwings to a 60-32 girls basketball victory against Bartlett at the Tip-Off Tournament in Lisle.
Five years ago to the day sister Emily scored her 1,000th point, doing it with a layup in the second quarter of a lopsided win over Naperville Central. She finished with 1,471. Sister Kendal scored 529 for the Redwings (5-0) also.
"It's crazy to think that I've been on this team since freshman year," Brooke Schramek said. "Freshman year I didn't get that many minutes, but more than the normal freshman. I don't think I could have done any of this without my teammates, clearly, because they find me when I'm open. They pass the ball really well."
Benet had a noticeable size advantage as a team, and coach Joe Kilbride took advantage by putting the 6-foot-1 Schramek, a senior who will play at Wisconsin, in the post early to get the points she needed.
Starting the night with 993 points, Schramek made a left-handed layup with 6:53 to go in the second quarter to give her 8 points to that point in the game. That made the score 16-10.
"When I scored the last layup everyone started cheering. It was such a cool feeling," Schramek said. "I honestly had goose bumps, it was so cool."
Kilbride said Schramek is very efficient with her scoring, getting her points without taking a lot of shots. She has to be, considering the Redwings have so much talent and depth that minutes and shots are at a premium.
"There's a lot of games where she only plays 10, 12, 14 minutes and isn't padding her stats. That's not a thousand that are padded stats," Kilbride said.
Schramek finished with 10 points in the game. Junior guard Molly Sheehan made her last five 3-point shots to lead Benet with 15 points off the bench.
Benet's depth played a key role in the game. Benet pulled away in the second quarter for a 26-13 halftime lead, making it 53-23 after three quarters.
"We're trying to play a certain way and it's hard to get there," Kilbride said. "I didn't feel like we played with the right level of juice early on. I mean our depth is really devastating when they play hard. I thought we just weren't at full throttle early.
"But when we got there you can see how it's exhausting if you're the other team and I bring in another wave of four or five and they're playing that way."
Sophomore Mackenzie Hare led Bartlett (3-2) with 11 points and junior Alexis Sinclair added 9.
Bartlett coach Joe Eirich was very happy with how his players performed against one of the best teams in the state.
"A lot of effort," he said. "We're a small team and we battled really hard. I mean we did not just let them play the game that they wanted. We made them work for it today. I'm completely in love with and proud of my girls and the effort that they gave tonight."