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Girls Basketball: Minooka pulls away from Batavia
Mary Beth Nolan~For Sun-Times Media
When Batavia’s girls basketball team took the lead on Minooka at the start of the third quarter of Tuesday’s Oswego Holiday Classic game, the Indians showed off their offensive diversity.
A 11-2 run that started with Ashley Clemmons scoring five points in the post and ended with Sara Placher drilling a pair of three-pointers was too much for Batavia to overcome. Minooka wound up pulling away for a 57-45 win.
“Offensively tonight, it was one of our best nights,” Minooka coach Ray Liberatore said. “I thought we had a nice balance of getting the ball inside to Clemmons, driving to the basket, and hitting outside shots. That was nice to see.”
Batavia’s Sami Villareal hit one of her three three-pointers in the game to start the second half and give the Bulldogs (5-7) a 24-23 lead. Aside from Miranda Grizaffi’s eight points in the third quarter, however, the Bulldogs had no answer for Minooka (4-7).
Clemmons was the biggest match-up nightmare. She scored a game-high 18 points, all coming down low or from the free-throw line. That wound up being the difference in an otherwise fairly even game.
“The one thing she does well is she catches the ball well,” Liberatore said. “You have to start there. She’s getting good position. I think she’s even more comfortable now going with her left hand. She’s a threat with either hand now.”
Two three-pointers from Liza Fruendt in the fourth quarter helped Batavia cut the lead into single digits, but a late 5-0 surge helped Minooka put the game away for good.
After scoring 17 points in the first quarter, Batavia struggled to score consistently. Grizaffi was the lone Bulldog in double figures with 11 points.
“I wasn’t really pleased with much of anything,” Batavia coach Kevin Jensen said. “We can’t just quite get the things done that I know we can right now. We’re just not doing good basketball things right now. I’m just going to make the adjustments that I think are going to work the best and we’ll go from there.”
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