Girls Basketball: Romeoville skirts by Oswego East

Updated: February 3, 2012 9:15PM

Romeoville had a little bigger cushion to play with this time.

The Spartans, who lost to Oswego East earlier in the season when they were unable to protect a seven-point, fourth-quarter lead, built a 15-point advantage with 2:19 to play Friday in Oswego. Even a 9-0 run by the Wolves wasn’t enough to erase that deficit.

Five-foot-11 junior center Kiera Currie had 29 points and 10 rebounds, Abby Smith added 10 points and Brianna Harris added 12 rebounds as No. 24 Romeoville (20-3) improved to 11-1 in the Southwest Prairie Conference with a 51-42 victory.

The win gave Romeoville a one-game lead in the conference standings, but the Spartans still have road games left at Oswego and Plainfield East.

“It’s nice to get this win, but we have to make sure that we stay consistent because anything can happen,” Currie said. “We can’t let this win fill our heads too much. We still have to treat every game like it’s our last.”

Currie helped Romeoville build a 20-17 halftime lead and extend it to 35-25 with eight minutes left. But she struggled at the line, making just four of her first 12 attempts from the free-throw line.

“I’m not going to lie,” Currie said. “There was a lot of pressure and I wasn’t doing good on free throws. But my teammates did a good job rebounding and everything. I just had to shake it off. My team did a good job of picking me up on free throws.”

Romeoville pushed the lead to 48-33 with 2:19 remaining when Currie hauled in an inbounds pass from halfcourt and muscled her way to the basket.

“Kiera’s a physical presence,” Romeoville coach Julio Carrasco said. “She’s not that big. She’s about 5-10, 5-11. But she is probably stronger than most girls I’ve ever seen. We practice with her and she’s throwing coaches around. I thought she did a tremendous job.”

But much like it did in the team’s first meeting, Oswego East (17-7, 11-2) went on a 9-0 run fueled by a pair of three-pointers by Aysia Bugg to close within 48-42 with 34 seconds left.

“Oswego East is not that big, but they’re very quick,” Carrasco said. “That was the one thing we told the girls. If you put that ball down, these girls are going to come and rip it.”

Arneasa Blair got Oswego East within six points with a pair of free throws, but Currie found the range on three of her next four from the foul line to keep the Wolves at bay.

“We did a good job of working inside-out and driving and attacking the basket,” Currie said. “We did a good job on defense. I think we were a little more hungry this time. But we have to keep pushing and treat very game like it’s our last and play our best every time.”

Bugg scored 23 points and Venita Parsons added six for Oswego East, which closes out its conference season against Plainfield South.

“We couldn’t get any shots going,” Oswego East coach Abe Carretto said. “It took too long to get them going when we did start hitting them. The aggressiveness we had at the end, we needed that sooner. Then it’s a whole different ballgame.”

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