Sydney Johnson scores 20 as St. Charles North drops Wheaton Warrenville South

WHEATON – Sydney Johnson had been in a shooting slump of late, but one never would have been able to tell Wednesday when St. Charles North played at Wheaton Warrenville South.

Johnson hit five 3-pointers with at least one coming in each quarter en route to a 20-point game and a 44-38 North Stars comeback victory.

“Basically, it’s just my teammates getting me the ball, having that faith in me,” Johnson said. “I haven’t been shooting the way I wanted to the past couple of games, so it’s just everyone putting their faith in me and having confidence in myself, too.”

The North Stars (20-5, 6-3 in the DuKane Conference) led in the game’s early moments but mostly trailed the Tigers (14-11, 6-4) after that. There wasn’t another lead change until early in the fourth quarter, and that became possible when the Tigers hit a lengthy drought from the field after two Abby Keighron 3s in the third.

“I thought our kids fought hard,” Wheaton Warrenville coach Kasey Gassensmith said. “It was hard to get some shots off. They’re long and lengthy, but I just think that we could have handled the ball a little bit better, and that would have given us some better opportunities.”

St. Charles North got a boost in the fourth when Bronwyn How scored six points after being held scoreless through three quarters. Among the other fourth-quarter contributions were a Lelaine Posada 3 and Elle Fuhr’s second basket of the game.

Wheaton Warrenville South finally broke its shooting slump late in the fourth with a Brooke Ittersagen 3, cutting the North Stars’ lead to 39-36.

After the North Stars took a timeout, they kept the ball long enough that the Tigers were forced to foul. Posada hit five free throws down the stretch to finish with 12 points and a win for her team, which held a 19-10 scoring advantage in the final quarter.

“When you have such a young team, so inexperienced, you’re not really sure sometimes how we’re gonna react to adversity,” St. Charles North coach Mike Tomczak said. “We faced some adversity, and tonight, we showed that we’re not gonna quit, and that’s big for us.”

Shea Carver scored in every quarter and led the Tigers with 14 points, the majority of which came on eight free throws. Keighron had eight points, a scoring output Marley Carbonaro also had.

“We just gotta get more shots up,” Gassensmith said. “They’re getting out on stuff, but then, there’s other opportunities as they get out. So we move the ball a little bit better, we get some more opportunities, we finish some stuff inside, it’s a different ballgame.”

https://www.dailyherald.com/20250129/girls-basketball/girls-basketball-johnsons-hot-shooting-helps-st-charles-north-rally-past-ww-south/