Junior guard Addie Prewitt scored just seven points, but her defensive impact set the tone for the game. Prewitt pressured Sycamore’s ball handler on the game’s second possession and was beaten, but she didn’t give up on the play. She raced back to block the shot, which ignited a fast break for Batavia.
Use whatever adjective you want to describe Batavia’s high-pressure defense — relentless, persistent, unrelenting — and it fails to properly articulate just how impactful the Bulldogs’ defense was in its 61-31 thumping of Sycamore in the first round of the Morton College Christmas Tournament on Wednesday.
Batavia (12-2) forced 24 Sycamore turnovers, many of them of the live-ball variety. The guards hounded ball handlers, guarding the Spartans with controlled intensity. They didn’t let offensive players breath, but they weren’t fouling. There’s constant communication and high-speed switches. Playing the pressure defense that the Bulldogs employ requires all five players to work in unison.
“The girls trust each other and play for each other,” Batavia coach Kevin Jensen said. It’s taken a while to get to this, but a bunch of these kids have been a part of the varsity roster for three and four years.
“We have so many fast guards who can who can guard; it can wear people down a little bit.”
The Spartans (11-3) scored just 15 points in the first half, but all five of their made shots were three-pointers. Jensen said taking away the three-point shots out of ball screens was a point of emphasis at halftime.
Sycamore chipped away at the lead after halftime, going on a 7-2 run to trim the 17-point lead to 12. To settle the team, Jensen called an empty-side pick-and-roll for arguably his best player, Brooke Carlson.
She received a screen from 6-2 senior center Sarah Hecht and attacked the lane, drawing in the defense, before whipping a pass to the top of the key that was quickly passed to senior guard Kylee Gehrt. Gehrt — who finished with six points — connected on the three-pointer, and it started with Carlson’s ability to get in the lane.
“It starts with the movement from everybody,” said Carlson, who is a Colorado State commit. “We put in this new offense, which really works for our team. We all get movement, and then the gaps open wide.
The wide-open offensive philosophy worked for Carlson against Sycamore: She scored 24 points to lead the game in scoring. Carlson is a maestro at orchestrating the pick-and-roll. She knows how to run her defender into the screen; she can split the screen or reject it and get to the basket.
Gehrt’s shot perfectly encapsulates the unselfish nature of the Bulldogs.
“Sometimes it’s as simple as going to the pick-and-roll,” Jensen said. “You got to help as she’s driving, and that leaves open shots. And again, that’s an example of the girls playing for each other. The kick-out pass might have led to a good shot, but that extra pass led us to an even wider-open shot.”
Carlson’s dribble penetration, combined with a defense that has a propensity for creating turnovers, makes it hard to beat the Bulldogs. Their two losses came against Kenwood and Geneva, two of the better programs in the state. Those prior games have prepared Batavia for the high-level competition they will face over the next week.
“I know a lot of people judge us for playing those high-caliber teams, saying, ‘Why are you doing that?’ Gehrt said.” But it sets us up for later in the season to see what we need to work on and where we can get to.”
Kyle Williams is a staff reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.
