Batavia uses stout defense down the stretch to help take down St. Charles North

ST. CHARLES — Things weren’t looking the best at halftime for Batavia.

With only 14 points on the board against St. Charles North, the Bulldogs were looking for any way to stay in contention in the tight contest.

But even on a night where the offense wasn’t at its best, the Bulldogs made up for it with some excellent defense, holding off the North Stars late in a 43-39 victory Wednesday night.

“The energy that we played with was just through the roof, and that was the biggest thing for us,” Bulldogs head coach Kevin Jensen said. “We might miss a rotation or miss an easy shot, but it’s hard to gain momentum from the other side if we keep that energy up and that’s we harp on all the time. And I thought that was a turning point for us in the second half.”

Batavia (19-8 overall, 9-2 DuKane conference) used that energy to score more than double their first-half points in the third quarter alone, with seniors Natalie Warner (11 points) and Sam Jansey (nine points) each nailing two 3-pointers to help the Bulldogs take a 30-27 lead heading into the final quarter.

The fourth quarter then turned into a firefight, with both teams exchanging the lead multiple times throughout the stretch. But once the Bulldogs secured a two-possession lead late in the fourth quarter, the defense shined once again.

“We knew coming into this game that it was going to be a really tough game,” said senior Hallie Crane, who led the Bulldogs with 12 points in the contest. “I think we started out a little slow, but then we started coming together and we played as a team, and they really brought the energy to help us push and come back.”

After entering halftime with a lead once again, St. Charles North (20-7, 6-5) couldn’t hold on for the win down the stretch against a top team in the conference, suffering a similar fate in a loss against St. Charles East on Friday

But even with the losses, head coach Mike Tomczak was more than happy with his team’s ability to stay in the game after losing to the same team 47-39 earlier in the season.

“This is the second game in a row where we’ve taken a top team in the sectional down to the wire, and it’s nice because our season’s not over and we can take this as a learning experience,” Tomczak said. “If you look at the growth from where we were last time, they bullied us on the boards and it wasn’t that close. But this was a game all the way, and I think we established against East and Batavia that we can be physical.”

Junior Sydney Johnson led the North Stars in scoring, dropping a game-high 20 points, including six of the team’s eight 3-pointers on the night. It was her second consecutive game with five or more shots made from behind the arc, with the junior sinking five in the loss against St. Charles East.

“She’s been a hot shooter for us all year,” Tomczak said. “I think the anomaly was a four-game stretch where she couldn’t throw the ball into the ocean, and then everything didn’t look great for us. But when she’s hitting those and causing the defense to stretch out, in a perfect world, it opens up the inside game for us.