Schaumburg's pressure gets to Hinsdale Central
After a couple quick second-chance buckets by Hinsdale Central at the start of Tuesday's game, Schaumburg coach Jacqie Strauch let her team know she didn't like what she was seeing.
The Saxons took her message to heart and it paid dividends.
After the Red Devils built that 5-2 lead early in the quarterfinal contest of the 2022 Bill Neibch Falcon Classic at Wheaton North, Saxons junior Madi Dolecki and her teammates put on the defensive clamps and pulled away for a 51-30 defeat of Hinsdale Central. The Saxons forced 21 turnovers and Dolecki dominated on both ends of the floor, scoring a game-high 20 points and grabbing 7 offensive rebounds - one more than the team total for the Red Devils.
"Our coaches always tell us that we have to have the best defense so we always make sure our defense is locked in," said Dolecki, who had 9 total rebounds and 4 steals. "We played good yesterday against Elgin. We started fast like we did today. We're always told to start fast, to get the lead and then don't give up. To still play our game and don't play down [even with a big lead]."
After Hinsdale Central's Katherine Skinner opened the game with a 3-pointer and then Grace Dolan's second-chance basket made it a 5-2 game, Strauch reminded her team it needed to keep the pressure on the young Red Devils on both ends of the floor.
"That was our plan to put some pressure on and kind of change our defenses up," said Strauch, whose squad will face a 12-1 Waubonsie Valley squad in Wednesday's semifinals. "To hopefully get something out of that which we did, especially with Madi Dolecki; she optimizes in those situations. Today was a nice night for her. She finishes around the rim. That's who she is. She's a bruiser. She's the energizer bus on our team."
Dolecki, who had not scored 20 points in a game before Tuesday, likes to do the dirty work down low. "I'm not really a shooter," she said. "I like going in and getting rebounds and going up strong. We all work together. We like to drive and pass it out."
Dolecki is one of five juniors who have been on varsity since their freshman years, and guard Jada Branch is another. On Tuesday, Branch added 13 points and 3 steals.
For Hinsdale Central, Dolan led the way with 11 points and Luella Sheehan added 6 points and 6 rebounds off the bench. The 5-7 Red Devils had knocked off Glenbard South in Monday's first round, but just couldn't handle the Saxons pressure in round two.
"We just needed to be able to handle the pressure better. We get very frantic when other teams start to pressure us," said Red Devils coach Erin Navolio, whose roster includes just two seniors. "I told them we always need to focus on ourselves and be patient. Then they start to get fired up or there's any kind of chaos and we can't match that. We have to play our own game."