Hinsdale South Girls Upend Downers North at Winter Classic

The Hinsdale South girls team’s 57-49 triumph over host Downers Grove North Saturday—a game that was part of the six-game Winter Classic held all day Saturday—can best be described as a tale of two halves.

Behind a combined 15 points from Katie Hunzinger and Amelia Echemann, Downers North dominated most of the first half. The Trojans, in fact, led 24-10 midway through the second quarter when Hunzinger, who led all scorers with 18 points, hit a three-pointer.

But the pendulum swung the other way during the second half. Toni Romiti and Uzo Okoro—limited to just one free throw between them in the first half—combined for 23 of the Hornets’ 39 second-half points as Hinsdale South went on to defeat the Trojans.

The Hornets, who cut Downers North’s lead to under double digits by intermission with a 6-0 run late in the second quarter, outscored the Trojans 16-9 in the third period and crept to within a point, 35-34, on Andrea McNally’s trey.

“I was proud of the way we played defense that second, third and fourth quarter,” said Hinsdale South coach Jen Belmonte. “We just cleaned it up. At halftime, we just refocused and made sure they weren’t getting any open looks. They were getting too many wide open looks, especially in the first quarter and a little bit of the second.”

Downers North coach Leslie Dehn said she could feel the momentum shifting to Hinsdale South toward the end of the second quarter.

“I thought we had a bad second quarter,” she said. “We were pulling away; we had them on the ropes. We had four possessions, I think, consecutively where we had layups and we missed them. And then we had a pass the length of the court that we threw out of bounds. We just didn’t put them away when we could have put them away.”

Okoro’s bucket underneath to start the fourth quarter gave Hinsdale South its first lead, 36-35. The lead changed hands twice, but then the Hornets took over.

Consecutive threes from Romiti and Jen Belmonte’s sister, Jackie, triggered a 10-0 run by the Hornets, who surged ahead, 48-39, with 1:22 remaining. Hinsdale South converted on 18 of 22 from the line for the game, including 11 of 12 in the fourth quarter.

Romiti, a sophomore who scored 13 of her team-high 14 points in the second half, said she and her teammates were focused and wanted to finish what they started late in the first half.

“It felt good to come back,” Romiti said. “Before, everybody was kind of stagnant. I don’t want to lose. We haven’t beaten this team in I don’t know how many years so it felt good to actually win. I just wanted to really win.”

Alison Schuster, who contributed 15 points and seven rebounds, pumped in a couple of three-pointers toward the end of the game, but it was too late for the Trojans, who slipped to 9-8.

“I think we need to kick out a little more with our drives,” said Dehn, whose team resumes West Suburban Silver action versus York on Tuesday. “We’re driving to the hoop and we’re not taking many shots from the outside. You’ve got to open that (inside) up a little bit. We were a little bit stagnant, I thought, with our offense in the second half. I thought we weren’t moving off the ball and we’ve got to get five kids moving out there and creating chaos for the defense.”

Okoro added nine points and a game-high 10 rebounds for Hinsdale South, which went over the .500 mark for the season (10-9) and travels to Willowbrook for a West Suburban Gold game next Saturday.

“We just kind of started slow and we didn’t do what we needed to do defensively on them,” Belmonte said. “They got a lot of easy points in those few minutes, and once we figured it out, we just ran our game plan and it worked.”

Hinsdale South 57, Downers North 49

Hinsdale South—Romiti 4 4-6 14, Belmonte 2 2-2 8, McNally 2 2-2 7, Okoro 4 1-2 9, Tomerlin 0 5-6 5, Thomas 3 2-2 8, Dimitrijevic 1 0-0 2, Fung 0 0-0 0, Clark 1 1-2 3, DeClouette 0 0-0 0. Totals 17 18-22 57.

Downers North—M. Echemann 1 2-2 4, Hunzinger 6 4-5 18, Lutz 1 0-0 2, A. Echemann 4 0-0 8, Schuster 5 3-6 15, Costello 0 0-0 0, Jirka 1 0-0 2, Sczpanik 0 0-0 0. Totals 18 10-14 49.

Score by quarters

Hinsdale South      7     11    16      23—57

Downers North     15    11      9      14—49

Three point baskets: Hinsdale South 5 (Romiti 2, Belmonte 2, McNally), Downers North 3 (Hunzinger, Schuster 2). Total fouls: Hinsdale South 10, Downers North 18 (Costello fouled out). Turnovers: Hinsdale South 13, Downers North 14.