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Girls Basketball: Sandburg holds off Joliet West
Updated: February 6, 2012 9:02PM
With Monday’s 48-43 SouthWest Suburban Blue victory over host Joliet West, Sandburg moved two games over the .500 mark.
A repeat performance Thursday at Lincoln-Way Central would guarantee the Eagles a winning season for the first time since 2005-06.
But guess what?
“We’re not satisfied with just over .500. We want to continue on in the postseason farther than we have before,” senior Kristen Bailey said.
Bailey definitely played Monday like she was on a mission, scoring 13 points and pulling down 12 rebounds. Her back-to-back baskets midway through the fourth period helped Sandburg break the final tie.
Jen Pache added eight points and 11 rebounds, Kelly Pocza eight points and Carly Katalinic six points as Sandburg improved to 14-12, 7-6.
West (8-16, 3-8) was paced by Kailey Poster and Vicky Orasco, who had 11 points each, Lanita Hinton (7 points) and Aaliyah Stepney (7 rebounds).
The host Tigers led by as many as four early, but spent most of the night chasing. They made their most serious rally from a 39-29 third-quarter deficit.
Hinton’s layup and a three-pointer by Poster, both in the final 1:30 of the period, chopped the lead in half.
With 5:32 remaining in the game Hinton, who a minute earlier drained a three, knotted the score at 41 with two free throws.
The 5-foot-11 Bailey then took over for Sandburg.
First, she cut from the left side of the circle, drove straight up the middle and scooped in a layup. Then, after a Pache rebound on a Joliet West miss, Bailey hit a running bank-in to make it 45-41.
“The lanes were open, so I took the opportunities,” Bailey said. “Sometimes they take baseline away because I like to do that shot, but I’ve been working on the floater.”
Bailey and Pache crashed the boards hard over the final four minutes for Sandburg, denying Joliet West more than one opportunity on most possessions.
“I think we just kind of got tired,” Tigers coach Kevin Michaels said. “We hit the wall, it seemed like, where we just couldn’t get a shot in. We used a lot of energy coming back.
“Our girls, I’ve got to give them credit. They fought back. They didn’t just back down. But once we got the game back in reach, we just kind of died down.”
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