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Arni reaches 1,000 milestone in Geneva's win

Cassidy Arni made a point to make a memorable moment even more memorable on Wednesday night.

Midway through the second quarter, the Geneva senior forward set a personal milestone by scoring her 1,000th career point.

Arni, a Wisconsin-Parkside recruit, topped the four-digit career standard for her career with a slashing move to the basket, leading to several homemade signs honoring her milestone to cause her to smile during the timeout.

She even mugged for a picture at halftime near the scorer's table.

"It was nice to get that," Arni said of her achievement.

In the third quarter, Arni went to work to make sure her milestone game included a "W." Arni scored 10 points in the third and added a 3-pointer to open the fourth to spark the Vikings to a 63-52 win over Deerfield in a quarterfinal at the 2nd Annual Morton College Christmas Tournament.

With the win, the Vikings (10-2) move forward to Thursday's 6:45 p.m. semifinal against Naperville North, which defeated Hersey 51-49 in the opening quarterfinal on Wednesday.

Arni led all scorers with 21 points to go with 10 rebounds, while Lauren Slagle added 20 points and Leah Palmer chipped in with 10 points. The Warriors were led by Lexi Kerstein's 17 points.

"For us, we knew the two keys for us were transition defense and rebounding," Geneva coach Sarah Meadows said. "I thought we did a really nice job in both of those areas. Our kids stepped up. Deerfield is really good."

The 6-foot Arni brought a small but vocal group of family members to its feet midway through the second quarter when she scored on a drive to pad the Vikings' lead to 21-16. After walking out of the locker room following the game, Arni proudly held a 1,000-point banner.

"It was kind of a weird and crazy basket," Arni said of her 1,000th point. "I had a lot of people here. It was a special game. I was little more aggressive to help us. We had a good start, had a letdown and came out strong after halftime."

Arni, who averaged 14.4 points, 5.8 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals last season, is building toward another big season with several breakout games through the first two months.

Wednesday was no different. She scored seven points in the first half to set the tone for the Vikings, who capitalized on a decided height advantage to pound the boards for second-chance points and limit the Warriors to several one-shot possessions.

All signs early in the game pointed to a runaway victory by the Vikings, who seized a 17-4 lead late in the first quarter. The Vikings were clicking on offense but the Warriors have an abundance of high-scoring players, chipping down the deficit in small pieces to only trail 26-23 at halftime behind nine points from Vermont recruit Lexi Kerstein.

The Warriors (12-3) were never able to mount another comeback after the Vikings gained control of the game in the third quarter to build a 45-35 lead.

"We need to do better on rebounding to win games," Deerfield coach Nicole Keith said. "We missed a lot of open shots. We missed nine layups. We have to play together and moving the ball and making the extra pass."

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