Glenbard South ends rough stretch with win vs. Elgin
Two out of three ain't bad.
Meat Loaf sang it. The Glenbard South girls basketball team lived it this week.
In a three-game stretch that started Tuesday, the Raiders successively lost to Bartlett and then beat Wheaton Warrenville South before drubbing Elgin 60-5 Thursday night.
Glenbard South jumped out to a 12-0 lead against Elgin and never looked back to improve to 5-3 overall and 3-2 in the Upstate Eight Conference.
Senior forward Akayhla Dixon led all scorers with 15 points, while senior guard Ava Selvaggi added 12. All nine players who saw the court for the Raiders scored.
"This is a hard stretch on us, three games in three nights," said Glenbard South coach Morgan Eufrasio. "We're still adjusting. We're looking for more kids to score and shoot. I think we have a lot of potential, and we've got a lot of work to do."
Selvaggi and senior guard Rocky LaPonte each had a 3-pointer and a layup in the game-opening spurt, with Selvaggi canning a layup at the first-quarter buzzer to give the Raiders a 14-4 lead. They rolled from there.
Three games in three nights is tough for any team. How did the Raiders do it?
"It's a lot on the body, but we are able to control our end of the court, and offensively, we slow it down, so it's helping us a lot," Selvaggi said.
Added Dixon: "It's preparation, to get to where we want to be, because playing teams like tonight, we get to go over things we need to go over to play better teams."
We're roughly a month into the 2019-20 campaign. How does Selvaggi feel about where things stand right now for her team?
"We're starting to come together and it's showing lately," she said. "Playing teams like (Elgin) is a really good step for us and it shows what our potential is."
Perhaps obviously, it was a rough night for the Maroons (2-5, 0-4), who were missing three starters. But it was a good time for coach Nick Bumbales to take stock in his squad as we head into the month point of the season.
"They are improving in a lot of different facets of the game, but it's just not showing on the scoreboard," he said. "We just tell them to get a little bit better every night and if we continue to do that, we'll come to another win. We've got a couple of wins under our belt, and once we get a couple of our starters back, we'll be in better shape."