Girls Basketball: Madison Richmond paces Rosary to win

It took awhile for Rosary to get going on Saturday afternoon.

But once the Royals added a little pressure and created some scoring chances in transition, they were able to take control.

Rosary defeated Glenbard East 59-37 during the opener for both squads in the Oswego Holiday Classic.

Rosary (4-6) found itself knotted at 10-all with the Rams early in the second quarter before kicking things in gear, going on an 8-0 run to take an 18-10 lead with 4:35 remaining in the first half.

Madison Richmond, who scored a game-high 18 points, scored six points during the run.

“We were tired at the start and finally we made a few shots and that seemed to wake us up more,” Richmond said. “We all played our parts and played more as a team, and we came out with the win.”

Allison Hansen ended Glenbard East’s scoring drought to make it an 18-12 contest, but the Rams were unable to cut into the deficit any further.

“One of things that happened was I had a couple players out with foul trouble and our transition can be very difficult,” Glenbard East coach Jen Ennis said. “It usually takes us a few possessions to transition to the new team that’s in after a few substitutions.”

Glenbard East (0-8) also had a tough time overcoming Rosary’s aggressive play on defense.

“We had a difficult time responding to their pressure,” Ennis said. “We’re definitely building, but we’re young and we made some mistakes and some of it was because of the pressure.”

The Royals opened the second half with an 11-1 run to lead 37-18 with 4:50 left in the third quarter.

“We played a nice team game, moved the ball well and looked for each other,” Rosary coach Dave Beebe said. “(Madison) Richmond had a nice game, and (Maddie) Kombrick had a nice game. Almost everyone scored today and they were all looking for each other and taking halfway decent shots.”

Kombrink chipped in with 13 points, Courtney Bila added eight points and Emily Popovich contributed seven points for a Royals team that is learning how to play without Karly Tate, who will be sidelined with an injury until January.

Tajanae Key led the Rams with eight points while Elie Donovan and Hansen had seven points each.

© 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.