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Prospect dumps Conant

Nine minutes is a long stretch of time in a 32-minute basketball game.

That's how long Prospect kept Conant off the scoreboard Tuesday night.

The visiting Knights trailed 25-21 midway through the third quarter, but ran off 16 straight points until Conant finally scored again with 3:33 left in the contest.

Prospect (4-2) won the Mid-Suburban League girls basketball crossover game 43-34.

"This was high intensity," said Knights sophomore forward Summer Srodulski. "We had to work together, finish strong and make plays."

Eliot Dojutrek scored 18 points for Prospect, while junior guard Isabella Tierney had 18 for the Cougars.

"We got off to a good start tonight in both halves," said Conant coach Todd Strauch. "We handled their pressure and made a nice run (in the third quarter), but we got a little tired and let down a little bit rebounding and defensively - and they took advantage."

The Cougars jumped out to an 11-2 first-quarter lead as Tierney scored 9 points in the opening stanza.

But Prospect rallied and took a 17-15 halftime lead as Srodulski scored 6 of her 8 points and grabbed 6 of her 8 rebounds in the period.

Then 7 consecutive points after halftime by Conant senior center Chikere Oduocha staked the home team to a 25-21 advantage with a little over 4½ minutes remaining in the third.

"When Chikere plays up to her potential," said Strauch, "she's as good as anybody, and she showed that tonight."

Trailing at that point by 4, Prospect came back to take a 30-25 lead at the end of three quarters.

Then behind 6 fourth-quarter points from sophomore guard Andie Will, the Knights scored the first 7 points of the final period to post a 37-25 advantage.

"We weren't worried," said Srodulski of the Knights' third-quarter deficit. "We just had to start taking good shots and stop them defensively."

Conant wouldn't score again until a floater on the baseline by Tierney made it 37-27 with 3:33 left.

The Cougars could only get as close as 8 the rest of the way.

"It's been kind of a common story this season that we've fallen behind and we've used that (a deficit) as an igniter," said Prospect coach Marie Miller. "A couple of games in a row now we've come from behind. We're a sound basketball team but we need to flip the switch a little bit earlier and start strong."

"We did have kind of a slow start," said Dojutrek, "but we did a good job of picking each other up and playing our game. We didn't hang our heads, we kept going and just went all out all game."

Oduocha finished with 7 points for the Cougars and contributed a game-high 11 rebounds, while teammate Emily Ytsen scored 4 points.

For Prospect, Will scored 8 points to match Srodulski, while junior Mia Gusloff added 4 points, and Dojutrek added 6 boards to her team-high point total.

Dojutrek, a junior who's in her second year on varsity, said the Knights are pointing toward what could possibly be a stellar season.

"I really learned a lot from my teammates last year," she said, "and this year I'm even more excited because we've got a chance to win the MSL. Every practice, every game, we're going after it."

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