Lisle, which dressed only eight players in Saturday’s game against Guerin, struggled to find an offensive spark early on.
They got it from an unlikely source in senior forward Kate Twaddle, who had 17 points and six rebounds in a 42-29 win over the Gators to close out the 12th Annual Bill Vandermerkt tournament at Riverside-Brookfield.
“She (Twaddle) has been our defensive specialist all season,” Lions coach Nick Balaban said. “Not sure how many she had, but I’m pretty sure today was her career high. She made some impressive plays down low and gave us what we needed today.”
Twaddle scored eight second-quarter points to help give the Lions (3-3) an 18-9 lead going into halftime. She picked up where she left off in the second half with nine points in the third quarter. Six of the nine points came in the final two minutes of the quarter to give the Lions a 33-16 lead going into the fourth.
Twaddle’s offensive efficiency helped compensate for the fact that they were far from full strength. Several players were out due to the Thanksgiving holiday and they also had to deal with the loss of junior forward Sarah Mogensen, who exited Tuesday’s game against Morton with a sprained ankle.
“I was more focused on getting rebounds and helping out since Sarah (Mogensen) was out, but it was nice to help out the team this way,” Twaddle said. “The way our offense is built it could have been anyone out there on the court.”
Balaban agreed, saying, “We’ve been short-handed the entire tournament with maybe seven or eight players available and this group has really responded to the adversity. There’s always going to be adversity in life and not just on the basketball court, and these really put together a good run.”
The Lions, short-handed and all, finished the tournament 2-3 and will open conference play Monday against Seneca.
Twaddle sees plenty of opportunity for growth for this team as their ranks grow and return healthy.
“We need to stay offensive-minded and we have to keep shooting,” she said. “Eventually, the shots will drop.”
Freshman guard Natalie Takahashi had six points for the Lions and junior forward Leah Reeves had four points, seven rebounds and three steals.
For the Gators (0-5), freshman guard Arianna Garry led her team with seven points (all in the fourth) and three rebounds. Sophomore guard Angelica Rivera added six points off the bench.
