Girls Basketball: Jackie Cardona’s near triple-double leads Aurora Central

Updated: February 14, 2012 9:37PM

Aurora Central coach Mark Fitzgerald figured his team was playing too tight in the regionals. So for Valentine’s day he gave each player a foam elephant to emphasize his point about focusing on the game at hand.

The Chargers took the lesson to heart and stormed by Hope with a 58-28 victory in the Class 2A sectional semifinal at Chicago Christian in Palos Heights on Tuesday.

Aurora Central will take on St. Francis de Sales for the sectional championship on Thursday.

``Coach was telling us to take the playoffs little-by-little instead of looking at the bigger picture of state,’’ Chargers guard Jackie Cardona said. ``The elephants were Valentine’s day gifts. He told us to ‘take the elephant apart piece by piece’. It was a good way of visualizing what we have to do.’’

The Chargers (23-6) trailed early but caught up quickly. Ashley Wilk took a couple of nice feeds from Cardona to make consecutive three-point plays that put Aurora ahead 8-5. Tess Alderman finished off the quarter with a three-point play on another feed from Cardona and an 11-5 lead. The lead kept getting larger from that point forward.

``Jackie is chasing the all-time scoring record here but you would never know it,’’ Fitzgerald said. ``She would rather get an assist and set up a teammate. She is a quiet, unselfish leader.’’

Cardona’s all-around game shone through on her stat line. The senior point guard narrowly missed a triple-double with 12 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds. She was the catalyst behind the balanced attack that Aurora demonstrated all-evening.

``I love passing and that’s why I like playing point,’’ Cardona said. ``We have a lot of good shooters and people who can score at different times of the game.’’

Lisa Rodriguez led Aurora with 15 points. Alderman finished with nine and Wilk had eight as the Chargers had eight different players score in the game.

Hope finished the season at 15-8. Tymeko Talbert led the Lady Eagles with 11 points.

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