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Sports
Ignited beyond the arc : Sports : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisIgnited beyond the arc
| O'Neill's three helps spark Panthers, McWaine leads Wolves
| by Kristin Sharp
| 2/7/2013
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It was a cold night beyond the arc last Friday night as the Oswego girls' basketball team played host to Oswego East.
The Panthers went 0-for-12 from three-point range and the Wolves held a 40-39 lead after senior Brittany McWaine's putback with nearly 2:00 left to play. Finally, Oswego sophomore Siarra O'Neill snapped the long-range cold spell with her three-pointer at the 1:57 mark to lift Oswego to a 42-40 lead.
From there, the Panthers (13-11, 7-6 Southwest Prairie Conference) never trailed in a 49-44 win over the Wolves (11-14, 6-7) last Friday.
"That was the first thing I said in the locker room: Siarra, you stayed with it and kept your confidence up, didn't get down on yourself," Oswego head coach Chad Pohlmann said. "We ran a play, Jordan (Campbell) got a good screen on her, she opened it up, and she nailed it. That finished us off. That's what good players have to do. All you can control is the next play and we've been on her about that mental toughness. I'm really proud of her. Everybody on the floor tonight played really hard. The defensive effort was outstanding."
Oswego was also buoyed by the play of junior starter Kelsey Nelson, who scored 10 of her team-best 12 points in the fourth quarter. Her basket with 44 seconds remaining gave the Panthers a four-point lead.
"If Kelsey is not voted on the All-Conference team, then we have a problem," Pohlmann said. "She has played tremendous since Christmas and has just been playing awesome. She's a junior and she's been playing two years up on varsity and it's starting to set in. She's leading us and she's commanding the ball, making plays, playing great defense and her confidence is growing every day. She was our rock in the fourth quarter and made some great plays."
Oswego sophomore Erin Sinnott opened the game with an early four points for the Panthers, but that lead didn't last as Oswego East senior LeRoyia Campbell (15 points) scored at the 2:17 mark to give the Wolves a 6-5 lead, and one minute later, she scored out of an Oswego East timeout for a 10-9 edge.
Campbell's basket - the sophomore's third of the opening quarter - gave the Panthers an 11-10 lead at the end of the first period. Sinnott assisted Campbell's basket to open the next quarter, but a slow pace limited both teams to single digits.
Campbell (12 points) and sophomore Amri Wilder combined to score eight of the team's nine points before halftime to give the Panthers a 20-16 lead at intermission. Oswego East was good for only two field goals in the second quarter and went 0-for-4 at the line.
"I know we were 0-for-6 in the first half with free throws. At the end of the game they caught up to you," Oswego East head coach Abe Carretto said.
"I think we kept playing well all the way to the end. We're still fighting all the way to the end ... I'm glad we had those opportunities. Missing free throws early on and a few in the second half, at the end of the game we should have been leading instead of down by two."
Campbell scored the first seven points for Oswego East in the second half and her driving layup tied the game at 23 points before O'Neill followed up with a basket at the 3:45 mark to send the Panthers briefly ahead. McWaine (15 points, 12 rebounds) tied the game at 27, senior Toni Robinson's jumper tied the game at 29, and McWaine came through once again for the Wolves, creating a deadlock at 33 at the end of the third period.
"The last two, three games, (McWaine's) back in her early season form," Carretto said. "When she does that, especially with rebounding, that helps. I thought she did great on the glass."
Junior Venita Parsons, who was held scoreless through three quarters, broke into the scoring column to start the fourth quarter.
Trailing 47-44, the Wolves had one final opportunity to go for the win in the closing seconds of play. With 11 seconds on the clock, McWaine was fighting to connect her layup, and subsequent rebound, under the Wolves' basket. A foul was called, but McWaine missed the front end of a 1-and-1.
O'Neill rebounded the missed shot and passed to junior Krissy Klingbeil, who scored at the opposite end to cap off the 49-44 win.
"Oswego had some opportunities on some layups and they hit them. They played well," Carretto said. "The one thing they did, they kept their intensity up. That made us keep our intensity up, and that's why you saw a good game."
Oswego East returned to play on Monday and lost 70-44 to Batavia for its fifth consecutive loss. The Wolves will look to return to the win column in the SPC finale today, Thursday, at home against Plainfield South.
Oswego East begins postseason play on Wednesday in the Class 4A Yorkville Regional as the eighth seed and will meet No. 9 Yorkville at 8 p.m. The winner advances to the regional championship game next Thursday, Feb. 14 at 7:30 p.m.
"There have been some things going on, some people at practice who are working harder than others in the positions they're in, and they deserve to play. I think it helped (Friday)," Carretto said. "Maybe some of the people who are starting will now figure it out that they need to play harder. Julianna (Wadsworth) is out because she was injured against Plainfield North. For us to only lose (to Oswego) by five, and having an opportunity to win it without a starter was alright."
Meanwhile, Oswego returned to play on Saturday and won 45-40 over Yorkville, but lost a 64-46 game to St. Charles North on Tuesday. The Panthers will close out the SPC season today, Thursday, at Plainfield North.
Oswego will open the postseason on Tuesday in the Class 4A Metea Valley Regional as the No. 10 seed, facing No. 7 Metea Valley at 8 p.m. The winner advances to the regional final on Feb. 15 at 7:30 p.m.
"Heading into the new year, we had that two-week practice and we talked that there's not a team on our schedule that we can't compete with. We've really played some good basketball," Pohlmann said. "I hoped we could get a top 10 seed, and we got a 10, and now we have a chance to win a first round game and see what happens. That would be a great accomplishment for our young team to get them past that first round."
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