Carmel Catholic downs St. Viator

Grace Sullivan really didn't feel like herself in Carmel's girls basketball home opener last week against Marist and wanted to make up for it on Wednesday night.

The Corsairs' sophomore was all over the boards in the first half and scored 7 of her 9 points in the fourth quarter. She pulled down 10 rebounds and had 5 blocked shots. Jordan Wood produced 16 points, 10 rebounds and 4 blocked shots.

That combination lifted Carmel Catholic past its rival St. Viator 44-34 in an East Suburban Catholic Conference game in Mundelein.

Sullivan was playing with a 103-degree fever in the previous home game and was much better on Wednesday

"Last home game, I had a fever and wasn't feeling well," Sullivan said. "My throat hurt, my head hurt, and it wasn't a good day for me. This game my goal was to do better than the last one. I wanted to come out like this one my first home game. Also, Viator is one of our biggest rivals."

Actually, the entire Corsairs' team came out healthy with a 15-0 start and led 19-2 by the end of the quarter.

Carmel (17-5, 3-2) pushed its lead to 31-8 by the halftime break.

"We don't man-to-man too much and play more zone this year," Carmel coach Ben Berg said. "I was happy with the way we defended in the first half and the way we communicated in the first half. We played hard and I told the girls it was one of our best halves of basketball and maybe the best all year. But, the challenge was to try to repeat that in the second half. All it takes is a little bit of a run and St. Viator got it down to seven pretty quickly."

The Lions (7-11, 1-1) recovered in the third quarter with a 17-1 run and cut the lead down to 32-25.

Nora Ahram scored 16 of her game-high 18 points in the second half and Joy Bergstrom had 10 of her 12 over the last two quarters.

"I think the girls came out with a different defensive edge in the second half," St. Viator coach Jason Raymond said. "We were able to slow them down in the third. It gave us the opportunity to crawl back into the game. We just didn't have enough in the tank though as the game went on. We've been pretty inconsistent at this point of the season, we've had some pretty good quarters like that and also have had some duds too. We're trying to put together 32 minutes, a complete game."

Carmel took control in the final quarter controlling the game and the difference the rest of the way.