Girls Basketball: Waubonsie Valley puts away Oswego early

Behind Rachael Ross’s dominating presence in the paint and the deadly long-range shooting of Tami Morice, Waubonsie Valley rolled to a 50-36 nonconference win over Oswego on Saturday afternoon in Aurora.

Ross led the Warriors with 15 points while Morice added 13 points, all in the first half, when she converted three of her attempts from beyond the three-point arc.

“When they were doubling down on me and Tia (Brooks) and I saw the double, I passed it out to Tami,” Ross said. “She’s usually on my side. When she’s on like she was it opens up a lot for us. And when she wasn’t open she passed it back so we had a nice thing going.”

Brooks added eight points to give the Warriors a another strong inside scorer.

“We knew we were going to have an advantage in the post, especially since they were playing behind us,” Ross said. “Usually if one of us misses, the other is there to pick it up, so we had a nice thing working down there.”

Waubonsie Valley (21-2) went on a 11-2 scoring run in the second quarter, taking a 29-11 lead on a Morice three-pointer with 2:23 left before halftime. A late run by the Panthers reduced the lead to 31-18 at halftime.

Oswego (10-13) could not do anything right offensively though in the third quarter. The Panthers failed to convert a field goal and fell behind 42-21 heading into the final quarter.

“They’re a senior-laden team and they understand how to play and run their stuff really well,” Oswego coach Chad Pohlmann said. “Our girls really battled though and we cut it to 12 there in the fourth quarter. If we make a few more plays here and there maybe it’s even closer.”

Oswego has battled inconsistencies all season, namely because its full roster hasn’t been available for every contest.

“We’re still trying to get everyone in the mix after having so many people out,” Pohlmann said. “It was really only our fourth or fifth game with everybody back so at times we were out of sync, but we battled.”

Meanwhile, the Warriors weren’t necessarily at their best. After beating Bartlett, they survived an ugly win over Metea Valley while their talent helped overcome any of the sloppiness on Saturday. Perhaps they were thinking ahead to Saturday night’s Viva Las Valley dance.

“At this time of the season you have to play with some kind of consistency and you’ve got to be peaking,” Waubonsie Valley coach Kim Connell said. “It’s not about taking steps backward, but going forward, and getting them to focus for 32 minutes with the dance later wasn’t going to be easy.”

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