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Girls Basketball: Becca Smith, South Elgin rout Burlington Central
| Andrew A. Nelles~For Sun-Times Media |
Updated: January 23, 2012 9:53PM
South Elgin senior guard Becca Smith found a way to dominate a game even when her shooting eye was off Monday, and the Storm girls as a team could say the same.
Playing for the first time since Jan. 10, and going without a practice since last week, the Storm routed Burlington Central 71-39 behind 19 points from Loyola-bound Smith.
“It’s been two weeks since our last game, almost,” Smith said. “And we didn’t practice over the weekend because we had a feeder tournament here. So it’s been a while since we were all on the court together.”
Smith made just 8-of-25 shots from the field, but very nearly pulled off a rare triple-double. Besides 19 points, she had 13 rebounds and seven assists. She had six of the assists in the first half when the Storm raced off to a 37-13 lead in a wild up-and-down style of game.
“I think once we came out we realized we could get everyone involved in this game and spread the ball around,” Smith said. “I think that’s definitely what I tried to do.
“A lot of people have been having a little bit of confidence problems on offense so I decided to get the ball to them and try to get them underneath.”
Senior post player Kennedy Miller struck for 10 of her 12 points in the first half, while Lania Robinson had six first-quarter points.
“I thought Kennede Miller played a real good game tonight,” Storm coach Tim Prendergast said. “She ran the floor real well.
“She gets after it pretty good. She’s a two-year starter now — it’s not like she’s a young sophomore.”
The Storm also had 10 rebounds and six points from Savanah Uveges and 13 points off the bench from Alex Matison, who had 11 in the fourth quarter.
“We got our record to 13-8 and now we’re hoping to get the No. 1 seed in regional,” said Prendergast.
Seeds are determined this week and Dundee-Crown figures to be the Storm’s chief competition, but South Elgin beat the Chargers 72-57 in the season-opener.
Burlington Central (8-12) had 12 points from freshman Alison Colby and 10 off the bench from Sarah Nelson. But Jessica Laird (9 points) and Colby were the only Rocket starters to get more than two field goals in the game, and Central had only 22 points through three quarters while falling for the third straight time.
“We knew they have strong guards and they do a nice job, but we knew we also had a mismatch with them in the post (with Colby and 6-foot Brenda Thasavong), and in the first half we started to execute pretty well looking for our post players at first,” Burlington Central coach Jenna Real said. “We found something that works and we then didn’t effectively use it.”
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