Wheaton North traps Blackhawks

Updated: March 23, 2011 9:36AM

Springing a trap on the West Aurora Blackhawks, the Wheaton North Falcons pulled away in the second half Thursday and claimed a 58-43 DuPage Valley Conference victory.

West Aurora was held scoreless for nearly six minutes in the third and fourth quarters, and the Falcons (15-6, 8-2) extended their lead to double digits. LizSkaggs scoredon afeed from Abriya Zeitz at the 1:59 mark of the third quarterand the Blackhawks trailed 37-34.

But the Falconsintroduced a halfcourt trap defense thatflusteredWest Aurora, and Wheaton North built a 47-34 advantge over the next five minutes. Zeitz finally ending the scoring drought when she sank one of two attempts from the free throw line with 4:08 toplay inthe game.

"That's the first time we've showed it," Wheaton North coach David Easton said of thetrap defense. "The girlsdid a good job of executing it. Fortunately it worked for us. I think it helped tip things in our favor."

"We needed to pick it up defensively and get our legs going," said Wheaton North's Fantasia Vine. "Coach just threw it together randomly at practice two days ago. We executed it pretty well."

Vine tallied 10 of her 12 points in the third quarter when she swung the momentum to the Falcons. West Aurora gained a 26-24 lead after hitting the first two baskets of the second half, but Vine answered with a putback bucket to tie the game with 6:57 remaining. Mandy Traversacanned a triple moments later and the Falcons led the rest of the way.

Another rebound basket and a pair of jumpers by Vine put Wheaton North ahead 35-31.She added a pair of free throws and assisted on a Traversa basket to close the quarter and extend the Falcons' lead to 41-34 heading into the final frame.

"Fantasia played really well," Easton said. "She got others involved, and hit some jumpers."

"We just picked it up as a team," Vine said. "The number one thing is to have fun. I wanted to get my teammates involved and the bench was helping out calling backdoors."

The Falcons netted the first three field goals of the fourth quarter - all coming after offensive rebounds. Sydney Sharkey deposited a miss and Maddie Baillie followed with a putback before Lauren Graham scored in the lane.

The Blackhawks (5-16, 2-7) didn't score from the field until the 1:40 mark of the final frame when Royalle Brown put in her own miss. Alexis Nelson propelled the Blackhawks to a 14-13 lead after one quarter scoring seven of her game-high 14 points in the opening stanza.

Skaggs and Dazmine Chaney chipped in 11 points each. Traversa finished with 12 points, and five rebounds while Sharkey added 11 points and four steals.

"Our legs got tired and when that happens, you don't think straight," West Aurora Connie Siljendahl said. "We need to get the ball inside more. We need to penetrate and get to the middle. We just stopped penetrating.

"We wanted to slow the game down. We wanted the ball in our hands and not run with them. If we did, we knew Fantasia would kill us."

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