Spartans, Warriors lose at Wheaton Shootout
Wheaton's DuPage Valley Conference representatives each had great success in this year's Wheaton Shootout.
In the girls basketball opener Wheaton Warrenville South stopped Wheaton Academy 45-29. The second of the evening's games went to Wheaton North, a 55-31 victor over Shootout host St. Francis.
In WW South's victory, improved offensive movement combined with dominant rebounding helped the Tigers (5-4) to their victory over Wheaton Academy (5-4).
"We haven't seen too many zones," WW South coach Rob Kroehnke said. "We didn't shoot particularly well in the first half. I felt we could have shot better if we had more ball movement."
The Tigers began a killing run late in the first half, moving from a 12-11 deficit to a 33-15 halftime edge -- a margin that grew to 37-25 after three quarters.
Sarah Langlas was dominant for the Tigers with 14 points and 18 rebounds.
"Offensive rebounds were just huge," Kroehnke said.
Overall, WW South outrebounded Wheaton Academy 38-23, though the disparity was worse in the second and third quarters.
"We struggled with boxing out," Wheaton Academy coach Beth Mitchell said. "It's something we need to work on, but that was, for me, the difference in the game."
When Langlas' offense waned, Taylor Nieling got hot. She scored 8 of her 11 points in the third quarter.
"Taylor Nieling has been playing awesome leading the offense," Kroehnke said. "I can't take her off the floor. Last year she was on the floor because she needed to take care of the ball and play defense. We had shooters. Now she's had to step up in that role, and she's done a nice job with it."
Alexa Sharkey led Wheaton Academy with 12 points.
Wheaton North (6-2) tore open a close game in the second quarter. Leading 16-14 after the first quarter, the Falcons outscored St. Francis 13-1 heading into halftime.
"We take great pride in our defense," Wheaton North coach David Eaton said. "We wanted to make sure we came out and played a good defensive game."
St. Francis (4-5) went nearly 12 minutes in the contest without a field goal. By the time Maggie O'Toole broke that drought 90 seconds into the third quarter, Wheaton North was well on its way to victory.
"We scored 1 point in the second quarter," St. Francis coach Leslie Fay-Dehn said. "They're a really quick team and we were not getting back on defense. Credit their defense, and we missed a lot of shots. Off of that, they got a lot of fastbreaks."
The Falcons used their entire bench and had balanced scoring. Madison Goudy led all scorers with 14 points. Allie Cerone added 11 points, Michelle Scandora had 10 points while Jamei Shin added 9 points.
"The nice thing for us is that there's not one person who's a go-to person," Eaton said. "All these kids can consistently score. It's nice, because we have so many options."
Catherine Culligan scored 7 points to lead St. Francis.