Girls basketball: Glenbard South topples West Chicago in battle of unbeatens

WEST CHICAGO — It’s not hard to acknowledge the strong early season starts that both the Glenbard South and West Chicago girls’ basketball teams had gotten off to on the young hoops campaign.

Together they entered Tuesday’s Upstate Eight contest a combined 14-0 with each squad posting a 2-0 mark in UEC play.

By the time the horn at Bishop Gym sounded for the final time, it would be the visitors from Glen Ellyn leaving as the lone undefeated team posting a 49-34 victory Tuesday evening.

“West Chicago came out and played aggressive and we struggled (early) getting the ball inside and we couldn’t get things (going) in the first period,” Glenbard South coach Eric Daca said.

“We did come out in the second, (Freshman forward) Kate Bruhl hit a couple of key shots, (Fellow freshman guard) Jamie (Mizwicki) heated up. The nice thing about our team is that we’ve got a lot of weapons. The key is that we’ve got to stick to running our offense and playing our game.”

After rolling off the last eight points in the first quarter to take an 8-3 advantage into the second, Glenbard South (7-0, 3-0) began the period on a 9-1 run over the first 3:18 to go comfortably ahead 17-4.

It was two 3-pointers provided by Bruhl (9 points) that served as the beginning and end scores for the Raiders in the decisive surge. West Chicago (8-1, 2-1) could get no closer than 17-8 after sophomore Jasmyn Trigueros nailed a 17-foot jumper at the 3:31 mark. The Raiders took a 22-10 lead into halftime and made it 39-18 at the end of the third.

Mizwicki, who led South in the scoring column with 12, credited her teammates’ ability to remain calm and disciplined.

“We don’t want to mess up and make silly mistakes,” Mizwicki said. “I feel like our team is really connected and we’re always together (both) communicating and working. As we continue to play, we get more confident and realize that you can overcome one mistake and (make) it into a good thing.”

Trigueros’ game-highs in both points (16) and rebounds (14) paced the West Chicago effort which saw it struggle from the floor shooting 11-for-47 (23%) while being outrebounded 39-28.

Coach Mark Fitzgerald believes the game will aid his young squad as the season goes forward.

“We played a really good team tonight. We were kind of overmatched physically,” Fitzgerald said. “I said to them that it’s only one game. Second of all, we left it all on the floor. Older teams here would’ve folded. This team did not. Teams have to learn how to win together and they also have to learn how to lose together. They have to learn about what to do next and there’s a crossroads there and how are we going to take this. They’ll learn probably more in a loss like this than a win.”