Triumph over Metea Valley tastes sweet to Waubonsie Valley

Waubonsie Valley arrived at Metea Valley on Tuesday night with a bad taste in it mouth.

By halftime that taste had only gotten worse.

But the Warriors found their basketball breath mint in the third quarter, scoring 26 points on their way to a 53-46 DuPage Valley Conference victory in Aurora.

"It was definitely important, especially just losing by a buzzer-beater (Saturday against Naperville Central) a couple of nights ago," Warriors forward Ahniya Melton said. "That one hurt. We definitely needed this win, and I'm proud of my team."

In a battle of District 204 rivals, Metea Valley took a 20-16 lead into halftime, its biggest of the game. That left the Warriors with plenty to discuss in the locker room.

"We talked about energy and communication on the floor and what we wanted to look for in transition," Love said. "I thought they came out with a lot of energy. They really focused on our press and what they needed to do to get steals and get tips and deflections. I thought they did a great job of locking in on that and then finishing around the basket."

Nobody was more locked in during the third quarter than Melton. She scored 15 of her game-high 21 points in the third quarter, many of them off the 9 Metea Valley turnovers. She also grabbed 10 rebounds.

"Huge. She really turned it on. She finished most of her layups when she wasn't in the first half. It was a big, big part of us succeeding today," Love said.

Metea Valley finished with 22 turnovers in the game.

"I go back to our youth, our inexperience. We just had nobody on the court who could settle us down," Mustangs coach Keith McDonald said. "They picked up the tempo a little bit. We rushed. We were flinging the ball. I just couldn't get us to settle down. We gave them a 26-point quarter. And that's kind of mimicked most of our losses this year."

Waubonsie Valley led 42-35 after three quarters. The Mustangs pulled to within 2 points in the fourth quarter but the Warriors pulled away again by scoring the next 7 points.

Halle Williams added 12 points for the Warriors (8-12, 2-2), shooting 4 of 6 from 3-point range. Mykah Berkompas also hit a pair of 3-pointers on her way to 10 points.

Senior Chloe Kurkjian led the Mustangs (8-12, 1-4) with 10 points.