Hubbard steps up in Wheaton North win over WW South
Wheaton North junior Ellie Hubbard picked a good game to break out of her slump.
Hosting cross-town rival Wheaton Warrenville South on Thursday night, Hubbard scored 19 points to lead the Falcons to a 44-30 DuKane Conference girls basketball victory.
"Me and coach (Dave) Eaton had a talk, and he said, you know what? If you're going to help this team, we need you to score," Hubbard said. "He just gave me a boost of confidence and I knew I didn't want to let my team down and not score. So I decided it's time for me to step up, help the team out, just get a 'dub.'"
Eaton saw Hubbard was putting too much pressure on herself and found a way to put it in terms Hubbard, a softball shortstop committed to Wisconsin, could understand.
"I said, do you hit every pitch?" Eaton said. "She looked at me like I was crazy and said no. I said, well stop trying to make every shot. I said, how many points are you scoring? She said, I don't know, 10, 12 points a game. I said when you're only shooting three times it's really hard to score 10-12 points."
WW South (5-19, 2-11) led just once, at 3-2. The Falcons (16-5, 8-3) immediately took the lead back and never let go, though the Tigers resisted letting Wheaton North get too far ahead as long as they could.
Wheaton North jumped out to a 21-10 lead with 3:17 left in the second quarter on a pair of Claire Hyde free throws, but the Tigers finished the period with an 8-1 run.
Going to the fourth quarter the Falcons' lead was 31-24.
"It was getting frustrating, and our coach had to be honest about that," Hubbard said. "We kept playing hard. We stuck it out. It's not always pretty, but it works. Play hard and we just played North Side basketball."
The Falcons hit double digits again with 5:10 left on a Hubbard 3-pointer from the top of the key to make the score 36-24. When Hubbard fed Ella Kocher for a lay-in at the 3:40 mark, the lead hit 40-26.
"I thought our effort, our defensive effort was good. We just can't trail," said Tigers coach Rob Kroehnke, whose team struggled against the Falcons' press, committing 24 turnovers. "We're not chasers, right? We got down and came back and got little glimpses, but we've got to take care of the ball. And if we don't take care of the ball, we don't have opportunities, right?"
Hubbard did have opportunities, and she wasn't about to let them pass. It was especially important she step up with Hyde in foul trouble most of the game. Hyde, the seventh-leading scorer in DuPage County, fouled out with 2:20 to play after scoring just 8 points, about half her average.
"That did not help us at all, but we did a really good job of being able to show we're not - and we talk about it all the time - it's not a one-man show," Eaton said. "And I think Hyde does a great job of doing some things for us offensively. But there are teams that are going to try and take her away, and when they do that, I thought our kids tonight showed there's a reason why we're 16-5."
Junior guard Julia Simon added 10 points, plus 5 steals, 4 offensive rebounds and 2 assists. Hubbard also had 4 steals and 4 rebounds.
Lily Huntzinger led the Tigers with 12 points.