WEB EXTRA!
The Trinity and Oak Park-River Forest girls basketball teams showed how it takes a few games to dust off the cobwebs on Tuesday night. The teams kicked off the season with a sloppy, yet exciting, game in River Forest. When all was said and done the Blazers came away with a 48-43 victory.
Trinity’s Lykendra Johnson wowed the crowd with a blocked shot early in the contest, but the Huskies didn’t get rattled, taking an early 10-3 lead.
Throughout the second quarter, the Blazers were able to keep the Huskies at bay and went into the locker room up 26-22. Trinity’s Monica Albano led all scorers at the half with 12 points. As the teams regrouped, the Jesse White Tumblers vaulted onto the floor for a halftime show in front of a near capacity crowd.
The third quarter saw sloppy play on both sides and each offense was only able to score six points. Johnson scored early in the fourth quarter to put her team up by six, but OPRF’s Mo Jenkins answered with a three-pointer, cutting the Blazer lead to three. The Huskies could not whittle the lead down any further. A key steal by Trinity’s March Smith with less than a minute to go sealed the Huskies’ fate.
Johnson led Trinity with 14 points and seven rebounds.
“It was first game jitters. We’ll sort it all out,” said Johnson, who earlier in the day signed a letter of intent to play for Michigan State next year.
Albano finished the game with 13 points.
For the Huskies, Tina Frank led the scoring with nine points.
“The whole team really wanted to prove something. We showed that we can work well as a team and that we can showcase different people and come out strong,” said Frank. Michelle Carter and Kendal Durkin each had six points for the Huskies.
“I couldn’t be prouder. We played hard the whole game,” said OPRF new head coach Bob Biggins.
Trinity’s new head coach Ed Stritzel echoed that sentiment “Their kids played hard. They were ready to play us. We were ready, too, but our offense was off. Our defense kept us in the game.”