The Oak Park and River Forest High School girls basketball team got their offense going in the second half of their final game of the Brenda Whitesell tournament at Hinsdale Central Friday, but they couldn’t catch a strong Riverside-Brookfield squad.
The Huskies (0-4) fell to the Bulldogs 57-35 in the tournament finale, as they got into their rhythm late in the third quarter with a 7-0 run capped off by a tip in from the right side by sophomore point guard Yvette Thrasher with 7:45 left to play in the fourth quarter to cut the Bulldogs’ lead to 51-31.
“I feel good, but I feel like we could have done a lot better,” said senior guard Shardae Spruille. “If we came out stronger right away like we did in the second half, we would have won the game. Now we just know that for next game, we’ll come out stronger in all four quarters.”
Spruille and junior guard Genevieve Simkowski led the Huskies with eight points each, while sophomore shooting guard Gabriella Chesney notched six points. Spruille, who was sidelined all of last season with an ACL injury, has been comfortable since getting back onto the court.
“I’m feeling really good, even after playing this game my knee feels really good,” she said. “I never thought I’d get to a point where my knee felt really good again, I was stressing about injuring it. But it’s good to be back.”
With 5:52 left to play in the fourth quarter, Bulldogs sophomore shooting guard Abigail Weinert drained a three-pointer from the right to put her team up 55-31, and the Huskies answered back with a shot from the right by Chesney and a drive to the basket on the right side by Simkowski to make it a 55-35 game with 3:43 left to play. Riverside Brookfield then sealed their 57-35 win with a basket by junior point guard Alyssa Morris.
“We finally settled down [in the second half],” said Huskies head coach Renee Brantley. “We got better spacing and looked to attack, and we got into a better rhythm. Unfortunately the turnovers really killed us today. We’ll learn from it and bounce back.”
The Huskies fell to Stagg 65-15 to open the tournament on Nov. 16, as Spruille, Simkowski, and senior shooting guard Taylor Smith each notched four points. Simkowski scored 14 points in the following game as the Huskies fell 43-33 to Metea Valley, and Spruille tallied 14 more points in the third game of the tournament as they fell 37-32 to Addison Trail.
“Our last games have been really strong,” Spruille said. “Our problem has been that we start off mellow in the first quarter, and then around the second or third quarter is when we pick it up, so we just need to get better at coming out of the gate full speed.”
