Trowbridge lights up West Chicago

Updated: March 23, 2011 9:48AM

Naperville Central's Victoria Trowbridge left Thursday's DuPage Valley Conference showdown against visiting West Chicago after crashing to the floor and injuring her right elbow less than two minutes into the game.

West Chicago would have been better off had Trowbridge never returned.

The 6-foot sophomore returned late in the second quarter and scored a career-high 18 points, including both ends of a bonus opportunity with 3.6 seconds remaining, to help the Redhawks defeat the Wildcats 49-44 and maintain a share of the conference lead.

"We knew this would be a tough game and they would try to stop Emma (Ondik)," Trowbridge said. "We had to work to get the ball to the post. I'm glad I scored a lot tonight because I came out of our last game with zero points."

Naperville Central (12-7, 5-1) overcame a 24-12 second-quarter deficit with an 18-4 run to open the second half which featured five points from Trowbridge and eight from Ondik, who was shut out the rest of the game.

"Coach (Andy Nussbaum) wanted us to get the ball inside more in the second half," Trowbridge said. "I tried not to think about the pressure when I made those free throws at the end."

Six-foot-3 junior center Emma Donahue also scored 18 points for Naperville Central. West Chicago (13-5, 4-2), which led 44-43 with 2:06 remaining before Donahue gave the Redhawks the lead for good off a nice feed from Jill D'Amico, got 15 points from Mary Connolly and 11 from Claire Monroe.

"We knew they would make a run and we'd have to weather it," West Chicago coach Kim Wallner said. "Our offense wasn't quite as sharp in the second half. We didn't hit our shots. Our execution was not as good and we turned the ball over a little more."

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