Sports
Glenbard South Girls Win Season Opener
The Raiders took a early lead Tuesday night and never let it slip.
Glenbard South's Nevena Markovic enjoyed an impressive season debut, pouring in 29 points and grabbing 15 rebounds to lift the Raiders to a 66-46 nonconference girls basketball victory over Batavia Tuesday night.
The Raiders' 6-foot-, 4-inch senior center tallied 11 of her points during her team's 20-0 run that turned a 6-4 deficit midway through the first quarter into a commanding 24-6 advantage early in the second period.
"She's a different player this year in my opinion," Glenbard South coach Julie Fonda said of Markovic. "She has worked tremendously hard between last season and this season. Her mentality is to leave nothing behind and you saw that tonight a little bit."
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"She was one of the best players in the conference (now defunct Western Sun) last year," said Batavia coach Tim DeBruycker. "We knew what they had. She's a great player. We were hoping we could hold her to something more like 15 (points) but we let her go off."
Batavia, meanwhile, had problems running its offense due to numerous ball-handling miscues. Fifteen of the Bulldogs' 25 turnovers occurred in the opening half.
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"You can't come out here, turn the ball like that in the first half and let them get easy points left and right," said DeBruycker.
Fonda liked what she saw during her team's explosive 20-0 surge.
"It was huge," said the coach. "We had some clutch shots and we forced some huge turnovers. Everything kind of clicked there. That was nice to see early in the season in game one."
Heather Anderson came off the bench to lead the Bulldogs with nine points, while freshman guard Liza Fruendt added eight in her varsity debut.
Fruendt, who nailed a 3-pointer on the first shot attempt of her high school career, canned another long-distance basket to pull the Bulldogs within 15 at 49-34 early in the fourth quarter.
But the Raiders (1-0), who also received 12 points and 10 boards from Danielle Chitkowski, responded with 10 unanswered points to put the game out of reach.
Alyse Cates added nine points for the Raiders.
