Batavia 54, Kaneland 39

Anyone who's seen Batavia's girls basketball team play for even a small amount of time has probably seen Natalie Tarter move toward the basket. She is one of those players blessed with the ability to shoot from outside but also to take the ball to the basket with authority.

Tarter drove to the basket with 4 minutes left in the third quarter and her Bulldogs trailing visiting Kaneland in a Western Sun Conference game.

Tarter scored, was fouled and converted the 3-point play. The thing about the play wasn't its novelty because, as mentioned, it's happened before. But the Bulldogs seemed to find their collective stride at that point.

Batavia scored 10 unanswered points after Tarter's drive, never trailed again and claimed a 54-39 victory.

"We didn't come out like ourselves," Tarter said. "We were off and slow. We didn't execute very well."

Tarter scored a game-high 20 points, including 7 in that third quarter, though she didn't want to claim all the accolades for herself.

"When we see good plays, they get motivated that we want to do the same," Tarter said. "It gets us excited. We go off that."

Tarter was certainly not alone. Melissa Norville scored 5 of her 7 points in that quarter as the offense rolled to life.

Batavia (16-2, 6-0) also started to go to the free-throw line. After taking -- and missing -- its 2 free throws in the first half, Batavia went 16-for-21 in the second half.

"A, they were behind, so they had to foul," Batavia coach Tim DeBruckyer said. "B, it was probably our aggressiveness going to the basket. Man for man, we did have more speed at each position. When we utilized that and went to the basket, we got fouled."

Kaneland coach Ernie Colombe watched his Knights (5-11, 1-5) take a variety of leads through the first 20 minutes of game play. A 7-2 burst to open the second half gave Kaneland its largest lead at 31-26 -- the same 5-point margin Tarter's 3-point play began to erase.

"We shared the ball," Colombe said. "We got shots. We didn't hit all our shots, but we moved the ball. In the second half, (Batavia) went zone and that affected us some."

Ironically, up to that point, the free-throw situation heavily favored Kaneland -- which was 10-for-12 free throwing in the first half compared to Batavia's 0-for-2.

"At the end of the quarter, they were already in bonus," Colombe said. "In the second half, they shot 21 free throws and we shot 2. I think that's the difference in the game. We played a different style of defense after that."