Bronwyn How, St. Charles North turn away Barrington, improve to 9-0

LAKE ZURICH – St. Charles North’s undefeated girls basketball team didn’t bring its best offensive game to Lake Zurich for Exam Jamm ’24 on Tuesday night.

But the North Stars didn’t forget their defense, particularly the 1-2-2 full-court press, allowing them to pass their test over Barrington, 31-16, and run their record to 9-0.

“Obviously, a few days ago (53-27 win at Wheaton North) we were really good shooting-wise,” said sophomore Bronwyn How, the North Stars power forward who is already attracting Division I interest. “But obviously we weren’t good this game so it was a day for getting the ball inside and I think my teammates did a great job doing that.”

How was the beneficiary of many of those entry passes, and she took care of the rest with nice moves to the basket. She came off the bench to net a game-high 12 points.

“We have seven starters in our opinion and when we bring our third big off the bench, whoever gets hot, we’re going to kind of ride that hot hand, and tonight she (How) was, so she got more minutes,” said North Stars coach Mike Tomczak. “She' a great kid, plays with great energy and is a wonderful teammate.”

How’s teammates Hannah Ganser (7 points) and Sydney Johnson (who later was injured and left the game early in the fourth quarter), each hit the North Stars’ only 3-pointers of the game to help stake them to an 8-2 lead with 1:21 left in the first quarter.

The lead grew to 17-5 when Riley Barber assisted Gasner’s layup with 1:10 left until intermission. A driving layup by Barrington’s Vidi Trivedi’s made it 17-7 at half.

The Fillies drew to within 19-13 midway through the third quarter when Ayla Allen hit an 8-foot bank shot. A layup Lelanie Posada (5 points) and How’s 8-foot bank shot with four seconds left made it 23-13 after three quarters.

Sophomore Isla Koertner’s 3-pointer got Barrington (3-6) to within 25-16 with 4:29 left in the game. But a big blocked shot by How resulted in a layup at the other end by Gasner to ignite a game-ending 6-0 run by St. Charles North.

Posada then lobbed a nice pass to How for a layup with 2:35 left and Posada connected on a 14-footer in the lane with 1:43 left to close out the scoring.

“In a perfect world, you make a couple of open shots,” said Tomczak, whose team has scored 28 points in one quarter this season. “But I mean we’re talking about missing layups in the first half and open 3s.

”You win by 15, which is not bad against a solid team like Barrington, but when you hold the other team to 16 points I think that says something about your defense. That’s kind of been our calling card the last two years. And honestly we need every bit of our defensive energy because for whatever reason our offense didn’t make it on the bus today.“

Barrington coach Babbi Barreir was also pleased with her team’s defense.

“We made them work hard for every bucket they got and as a coach that’s what you hope your team will do defensively but on offense we have to make better decisions,“ Barreir said. ”Twenty-seven turnovers is too many.“We got their lead down to 6 points but we couldn’t knock down shots. We are learning right now and we knew we were going to take some lumps. St. Charles is a nice team. That 1-2-2 they play and with that energy for four quarters is outstanding.“

Barreiro is hoping to have two starters, senior Simra Alam and sophomore Lily Richmond, return from knee injuries.

https://www.dailyherald.com/20241210/girls-basketball/girls-basketball-st-charles-north-stymies-barrington-improves-to-9-0/