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Girls Basketball: Stevenson battles back to top Zion-Benton
Updated: December 1, 2011 9:18PM
Stevenson squandered a 19-8 halftime lead, and was outscored 18-0 during a 7:30 stretch of the second half, but came back to edge host Zion-Benton 40-39 on Thursday.
The Patriots are 4-1 overall and Z-B is 4-2. This was the North Suburban Conference Lake Division opener for both teams.
Stevenson led 19-8 at halftime as Zion made 3-of-25 from the field in the first 16 minutes.
But the game turned right after intermission as Zion scored the first 11 points of the third quarter to tie it at 19-19 just 1:45 into the second half.
Stevenson then countered with a 15-0 run to lead 34-19 with 48 seconds left in the third quarter.
From the point, Zion scored 18 straight to take a 37-34 lead with 1:30 remaining.
From there, Stevenson freshman Taylor Buford hit two free throws with 1:18 left to make it 37-36, and after a Zion turnover, Buford hit a jumper from the foul line to give Stevenson the lead at 38-37 with 44 seconds left.
After yet another Zion turnover, Stevenson missed two free throws, but Alex Elzinga rebounded, was fouled and hit two free throws with 20 seconds left to make it 40-37.
Zion’s Morgan Franklin scored on a layup with 3.2 seconds left, and Stevenson missed two free throws after the ensuing foul, but the Zee-Bees couldn’t get a shot off.
“What an effort by our girls in the second half to half to fight back, not once, but to give them the lead right back and fight back a second time,” said Z-B coach Frank Mattucci, who worked the bench for the ailing Tanya Johnson. “This group of girls has some growing pains to go through, but once we do, they’re going to be tough.
“It’s up to the kids to learn to play as a group, like last year’s team (that finished second in the state tournament).”
Sam Rodriguez had a game-high 18 points for Zion and Octavia Crump had seven points and 11 boards.
On the winning side, Katharine Batman had 12 points on 4-for-4 shooting from behind the arc.
Elzinga added 10 points and eight boards.
“It wasn’t pretty but we came out with a ‘W’,” said Patriots coach Tom Dineen. “We’re not in midseason form, but we shouldn’t be.
“I like what we did tonight defensively. That’s going to win us a lot of games, if we can continue to play defense like that.”
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