Girls Basketball: South Elgin girls advances past Plainfield East
| Corey R. Minkanic~For Sun-Times Media
Updated: December 27, 2011 9:12PM
After nearly two weeks without a game, the South Elgin girls basketball team was itching to return to the hardwood.
The Storm opened play in the Oswego East Holiday Classic Tournament on Tuesday evening with a 61-49 victory over Plainfield East.
“I always worry about the first game of a holiday tournament because it’s always a trap game,” South Elgin coach Tim Prendergast said. “We haven’t played in 12 days so I was worried about that today. It was good to get a win in the first round.”
South Elgin (9-4) took awhile to get going, but the Storm turned an 11-10 deficit late in the first quarter into a 20-11 lead with 4:50 left in the second quarter when sophomore Savanah Uveges scored an uncontested layup.
Uveges (12 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds, 4 steals) scored all of her points in the first half on layups as the Storm constantly beat the Bengals down court and was able to score many times in transition.
“We struggled a bit on the boards, but our strengths are quickness and athleticism,” Prendergast said. “We also can handle the ball and we can shoot. We may not be big but we present matchup problems with our quickness.”
Plainfield East (8-4) pulled to within 27-22 with 6:20 remaining in the third quarter, but the Storm outscored the Bengals, 15-3, to pull well ahead at 42-25.
“They had really good movement in their offense and they hurt us a lot just by driving in,” Plainfield East coach Missy Mitidiero said. “Everything we threw at the girls wasn’t Bengals basketball and not what we pride ourselves with.”
The sluggish start didn’t bug Storm senior guard Becca Smith as she led her team with 20 points along with seven assists.
“It took us a bit to get back to game mode after having a week and a half or so between games,” she said. “Maybe we were a little out of shape after the holidays but I think we definitely got back into it as the game went on.”
Kennede Miller added nine points and Lania Robinson chipped in with eight points in the winning effort.
Gabriel Williams led the Bengals with 14 points, Faith Suggs had 10 points and Denitsa Owikoti did her best to keep her squad in the contest by controlling the paint with a 12-rebound, eight-point effort.
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