St. Charles North handles Schaumburg to move on

St. Charles North put together a terrific second quarter defensive effort Tuesday against Schaumburg at the Saxons' Class 4A girls basketball regional Tuesday night.

And on the offensive end, North Stars freshman Alyssa Hughes was simply unstoppable.

St. Charles North outscored the Saxons 19-0 in the second period as Hughes, a 5-foot-5 guard, scored 12 points in the stanza.

The North Stars kept the pressure on the rest of the way in a 53-20 semifinal victory, and Hughes said that it was all about doing it for the seniors.

"I just knew tonight that I had to step up for the seniors," said Hughes. "I wanted them to have a chance to compete for a regional title."

"Alyssa plays with confidence and she can shoot the ball as well as anybody," said St. Charles North coach Mike Tomczak. "She's got her share of experience this year and we feel that she has an extremely bright future."

North Stars junior Tatum Settelmyer scored a game-high 13 points, classmate Talia Pellegrini had 9 points, while senior Talia Torosian led Schaumburg with 9 points.

"We already played St. Charles earlier this year (a 49-16 North Stars win) and something similar to tonight happened," said Saxons coach Jacqie Strauch. "One of our goals today was not to let one thing lead to another then another, but it kind of unraveled for us in the second quarter. We came out refocused in the third quarter, but it was just too big of a gap to close."

Schaumburg played extremely well in the first 8 minutes of the game and took a 10-9 lead near the end of the first quarter after 2 free throws from junior Savannah Williams.

But St. Charles North scored the next 22 points of the contest, including 19 unanswered in the second.

And when Hughes hit a 3-pointer late in the period, was fouled and sank the foul shot for a 4-point play - then sank another closely contested 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer - St. Charles North led 31-10 at intermission.

"The nice thing about our squad this year is that we have a couple of defensive looks we can throw at teams," said Tomczak. "We were getting some deflections on defense and we had some kids come in off the bench and do a nice job."

Schaumburg got a third quarter spark when Torosian hit the second of her three 3-pointers, but St. Charles North quickly extended the lead thanks to 5 points in the period from Pellegrini.

Then the North Stars' defense excelled again in the fourth quarter, allowing Schaumburg only 3 points to seal the win.

Senior Launi Chanthaboury scored 5 points for the North Stars while classmates Caroline Jakaitis and Emma Nawara each tallied 4.

Schaumburg's loss closed out the prep careers of seven seniors - Torosian, Katie Smith, Mady Vodicka, Mary Hilgart, Namleen Kohli, Michelina Tuzil and Jackie Drs.

"They were just a really special group," said Strauch of her senior class. "That's why we spent a lot of time (in the locker room) after the game. We talked about why it was so hard to lose today, because we wanted to be together tomorrow. These kids have just been awesome, they worked hard every single day."