Peri Sweeney’s five second-half 3-pointers lift Geneva to 64-52 victory over Hampshire

HAMPSHIRE – Peri Sweeney was a bit upset about how her game against Hampshire started.

Within the first five minutes of action, Geneva’s senior guard already found herself on the bench after picking up three fouls, and she wouldn’t leave that spot for the entire first half.

So when she came onto the court, she knew she had to make up for some lost time.

“I was very disappointed with my first half,” Sweeney said. “But I think I just took it out when I got the chance to get back out there.”

Sweeney took full advantage of her chances, shooting 5 for 6 from behind the arc to help her to 16 points in the half as the Vikings would use that momentum to take a 64-52 victory over the Whip-Purs for their first win of the season at the Hampshire Thanksgiving Tournament.

“She can get hot real quick, and she was mad. I like the mad Peri,” Geneva coach Sarah Meadows said.

Sweeney’s 3-point streaks helped Geneva (1-2) push the pace throughout the second half. After the Whip-Purs forced the only tie of the game at 32-32 in the middle of the third quarter, the guard rattled off her first three 3-pointers of the game to force a 10-2 run to extend the lead back to 42-34.

She would go on a run again in the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach, rattling off back-to-back 3s to give the Vikings a 14-point lead, their largest of the night.

“It was just really cool,” Sweeney said. “The team just helped me out so much with all that, and I think it was just motivation from all that sitting that I did. That really got me going, and I was just excited.”

While Sweeney was on the bench, the Vikings relied on the play of junior Bridget Hecker to get them through the first half. The forward scored 11 of her team-high 17 points in the first half after going perfect from the floor. She also finished with nine rebounds on the night.

Meadows said that after having a chat with Hecker at halftime of Wednesday’s loss to Lake Zurich, she’s stepped up her game a lot.

“That’s what she’s capable of, and I need her to feel that and know it and believe it,” Meadows said. “She’s a really good basketball player, we just need to have that consistently.”

Besides those two, the Vikings had 12 other players find the court in the game. Meadows said that with it being such a young team, she’s still trying to learn about her kids.

“I’m trying to learn what kid is going to help us, and who is going to get on the court,” Meadows said. “They’re going to get opportunities, and what they do with them determines what happens next.”

Despite the loss, Hampshire (0-2) still put up a fight throughout the game. Junior Mikala Amegasse led the game with 19 points thanks to her consistent attacks at the rim. Meanwhile, sophomore Peyton McCarthy put up 13 points, including all three of the Whip-Purs’ 3-pointers on the night, and senior Chloe Von Horn had 12 points and nine rebounds.

Hampshire head coach Eric Samuelson said that even though there were some tough stats on the night, there were a lot of good things that he saw from his team, such as their 10 offensive rebounds and 10 steals on the night. Samuelson hopes that the team, which only had two players with a good amount of varsity experience heading into the season, can take some lessons out of the games against some of the top teams in the state to help them when it comes to conference play.

“I hate losing, but I’m happy that we saw things out there that are easy to fix,” Samuelson said. “We play really good teams early, because you can see where you’re lacking and maybe where some good things are. And we saw a lot of good things out there.

“It’s a new team from a standpoint of varsity experience, and I think we can only grow from here.”