Downers South overpowers Lyons

Updated: November 19, 2011 9:07PM

Sarrah Ludwig has high expectations entering this season, but she didn’t count on nearly outscoring the opposition by herself to open the season.

Ludwig scored a game-high 14 points as Downers Grove South beat Lyons 37-19 Saturday night in the Lyons Thanksgiving tournament in Western Springs. Ludwig, a senior guard, scored 10 points in the second half while the Mustangs (1-0) defense did the rest of the work by limiting Lyons (1-1) to one basket in the fourth quarter.

Downers South led 6-5 to end the first quarter, but kept Lyons scoreless for 7:25 in the second quarter and pulled away by scoring 14 consecutive points. The Mustangs were the bye team in the five-team tournament and did not play in Friday’s opening round.

“I think it was an advantage playing our first game today,” Ludwig said. “We could watch them yesterday and scout them a little bit.”

Everything seemed to go right for Lyons Friday night in its season-opening 64-32 win over Queen of Peace, but the experience could not be repeated on Saturday.

“The first game was a good win for us,” Lyons coach Katie Meyers said. “Today we were a different team. When we were challenged, we backed down.”

The Mustangs outscored Lyons 14-4 in the second quarter. Clare Polega scored the first basket of the second quarter on a layup with 7:29 to go, but Lyons did not score again until Maggie Orlowski’s driving layup with four seconds left.

Allison Dec scored five of her eight points to start Downers South’s run in the second quarter.

In the fourth quarter, Lyons scored only four points and its only basket was Orlowski’s baseline layup with 3:44 to go. Downers South used a 2-3 zone, which worked effectively against Lyons.

“I thought we played well together as a team,” DGS coach Ellen O’Brien said. “It was not a high scoring game.”

Lyons junior Ashanti Davis, who scored a game-high 16 points in the second opener, did not score against Downers South and missed all six of her shot attempts. Lyons’ leading scorer was Colleen Connors with six points. Polega added five points and seven rebounds.

“We stopped [Davis] and a lot of their players,” Ludwig said. “We knew who did well for their team. They played so well against Queen of Peace.”

Lyons plays West Chicago in the next round at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.

“We were outworked and we were outhustled,” Meyers said.

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