Girls Basketball: Waubonsie Valley capitalizes on early lead vs Lake Park

Updated: January 18, 2012 9:36PM

Lake Park knew a strong start was crucial if it stood a chance of upsetting No. 7 Waubonsie Valley during Wednesday’s Upstate Eight Valley girls basketball game in Aurora.

The Lancers could not have had a more dreadful beginning as they turned the ball over during eight of their 12 first quarter possessions, made just 1 of 5 field goals and fell behind 15-2.

Things didn’t get much better the remainder of the evening as Waubonsie Valley recovered from Monday’s nonconference loss to Benet and rolled to a 52-26 victory.

“We came out strong and this was more of us trying to make a statement to ourselves after a tough loss to Benet,” Waubonsie Valley coach Kim Connell said. “We knew we could attack them offensively, but it was about getting good possession and getting looks.”

After starting so poorly, the Lancers turned things around drastically in the second quarter, scoring on their first four possessions to pull within 17-11 midway through the quarter, but they’d never get any closer.

“That was the worst we came out all year,” Lake Park coach Andrea Miller said. “We were flat to begin with. I don’t know why, but they took us out of our game right from the beginning and we didn’t get back into it too much.”

Tia Brooks led a balanced attack for Waubonsie Valley (16-2, 7-1) with 11 points. Becky Williford and Rachael Ross each added 10 points while Erica Jordan and Tami Morice chipped in with seven points apiece in the winning effort.

“We moved the ball very well tonight and played more as a cohesive team,” Williford said. “That’s what’s going to do it for us in the long run. We made the extra pass and that opened up easier baskets.”

The Warriors shot 44 percent from the field (20 of 45) but just 4 of 15 from three-point territory.

Lake Park (8-11, 2-6) trailed 33-13 at halftime, but the game truly turned into a rout as the Warriors opened the second half on a 10-2 run to go ahead 43-15 with 3:47 left in the third quarter.

“We have a tendency to not be aggressive in the third quarter and we came out and played hard,” Connell said. “I was proud of that, and anytime you get a chance to play everybody on the bench, that’s a good night.”

Alyssa Hernandez led the Lancers with eight points, but Alexis Hahn was limited to only six points.

“Our first priority was to take out Alexis Hahn,” Williford said. “We stuck our best defender, Erica Jordan, on her because she kind of got to us the last time we played. Erica did a very nice job.”

Brianna Erri came off the bench and made 6 of 6 free throws for the Lancers.

© 2012 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.