CARPENTERSVILLE – Despite a solid effort from sophomore guard Sam Novak off the bench, the St. Charles North girls basketball team lost its second game in as many days at the 30th annual Charger Classic, falling to Resurrection, 63-58, on Thursday at Dundee-Crown morning.
North (4-11) struggled to convert key free throws in the second half, which ultimately led to its demise after a strong first half.
“Every game is a learning experience and we learned that we need to compete consistently,” North Stars coach Colleen Backer said. “Free throws were not helpful in this game and that’s something we need to improve on.”
After a sluggish first two minutes, the first quarter turned into a scoring barrage that found the Bandits ahead, 16-15. But North used its bench scoring, particularly Novak, to spark its offense in the second quarter.
The Bandits grabbed an 18-15 lead on a basket from Kelly Barzowski, but North responded with an 11-0 run, highlighted by a jumper and one of two 3-pointers from Novak in the period, to take a 26-19 advantage on Kyla Helsel’s basket with 5:13 left. The North Stars led 36-29 at halftime and kept their turnover number low (three) in the second quarter to keep pace with Resurrection.
“We were playing real well at that point and were doing a great job against man defense,” Backer said. “We made a lot of good decisions and were working together, but we started missing shots in the third quarter and things went into a standstill.”
The Bandits fought back in the third quarter to tie the game at 42 with just less than 2:30 left, then used a 10-5 scoring run to pull ahead 52-47 with 4:03 remaining in the game.
North responded to tie the game at 52 on a 3-pointer from Alex Silverman and a basket from Morgan Rosencrants, but Resurrection countered once again with another run, this time an 8-0 clip, to move ahead 60-52 before back-to-back 3-pointers from Silverman and Novak brought North to within 60-58 with 31 seconds left.
A free throw and a rebounded basket from Bandits junior Kate Moriarty, who finished with a game-high 19 points, decided the final margin.
Both Novak and Silverman finished with 14 points, while Nicole Davidson added 11 and Rosencrants nine for North.
“We couldn’t get stops and we let [Moriarty] take over, which hurt us,” Backer said. “So we had a hard time adjusting to that.”
