BY COURTNEY DIDDELL, Editor

Kaneland’s Lady Knights started off their season with a tournament victory for the second year in a row.

“[Going into the tournament] I felt really confident because we won last year and we basically have the same team with more depth. We’ve all been practicing really well, too,” senior Allyson O’Herron said.

The players were satisfied with their team’s outstanding outcome. The team won 47-38 against Regina Dominican, 70-4 against Maria, 34-23 against Lisle, and 33-27 in their championship game against Immaculate Conception high school.

“We had some times when Immaculate Conception went on a run, but we got it back and the seniors really did a great job leading the team to win back to back championships,” Bradford said.

Coaches Ernie Colombe and Walter Dillivan were very impressed with the team’s level of play as well.

“We would have liked to shoot better because we missed a lot of easy shots, but our defense, rebounding, and free throws were pretty good,” Dillivan said.

The girls beat Immaculate Conception in championship game last year too, and the score was only a point off this year’s game.

“This year was a challenge since we missed 50 percent of the shots we took,” Dillivan said.

The tough practices, that were mainly focused on defense, really played a part in the tournament and showed through the girl’s tremendous effort and hard work. Bradford said defense is where the team locks down in a game.

“Although we worked on rebounding, we put a lot of focus into our defense because as a team that’s one of our biggest strong points,” O’Herron said.

Bradford said the team improved throughout the tournament.

“I think we progressed each game as a team and individually,” Bradford said.

Now that the tournament is over, the girls have started focusing on the rest of the season and bonding their team.

“[To prepare for the rest of the season] we are working hard to improve our weaknesses both as a team and as individuals. We also have a lot of team dinners to build our chemistry,” O’Herron said.

Lack of height and tough competition will cause some struggles for the team as they progress through their season.

“December is going to be a really tough month. We play Morris, Sycamore, Dekalb, and Antioch back to back along with the Ottawa tournament. Not to mention we will be the smallest team all year,” Dillivan said.

Last year, the girls won two tough games against Morris and are looking forward to playing them again.

Rather than working on defense, the team focuses on offense now.

“We’re just trying to improve the girl’s fundamentals and shooting percentage,” Dillivan said.