Illinois Prep Girls’ Basketball: Road weary United Township still undefeated
Imagine traveling over 1,100 miles in a span of two weeks. The United Township girls’ basketball team did just that, as they took on six teams across northern Illinois and remained unbeaten at 6-0.
“I am proud of the girls,” Lady Panthers head coach Chase Pavelonis said. “They've bought into the culture and they're trusting each other on the court right now. The ball is moving around quickly.”
The Lady Panthers faced teams from the suburbs of Chicago in Wheaton Academy and Yorkville Christian Academy to more local variety in Dubuque Senior and Alleman.
Despite a road gauntlet to start the season, United Township has won each of their non-conference games by an average margin of 32.5 points per game.
“It’s definitely tough to have the first six games on the road, but we are ready for the next road game,” senior guard Cassie Bohnert said.
“We had some fans out there, like our parents, but those games were tough, and our energy was still great,” North Carolina State commit and senior center Lorena Awou said.
Pavelonis appreciated the challenge of six road games over a 13-day stretch, and said they're not the only team with a difficult start to the season.
“You can look at some other schools who have more road games to open up the season, so you can say the grass is greener on the other side,” Pavelonis said. “It really was a good test for us to see how we handled being on the road, but I am really excited to finally have a home game and have a packed gym on Thursday.”
The Lady Panthers are coming off a Monday night win at Dubuque Senior High School, defeating the Rams 66-32.
“We played together and executed what we want to do as a game plan,” Pavelonis said. “We could clean up a little bit of our late game execution towards the fourth quarter, but right now we did what we wanted to do.”
Lorena Awou is the Lady Panthers’ leading scorer (14.8 points per game) and rebounder (9.67 rebounds per game).
“She's meeting expectations and going above and beyond at times,” Pavelonis said. "There are times when she has the ball, she can choose to just take it up, and she's also making a great team play of getting that ball out when she's getting double- and triple-teamed down at the post. But then once she does have a favorable advantage, she's taking advantage of that. So, it's been great to see.”
Pavelonis believes that the successive blowout wins to start the season is a result of their defensive acumen.
“We want to focus on the defensive side of the ball - it is having the pride of guarding your one-on-one matchups, but then also understanding our defensive flaws, schematics of what we want to execute and what we want to take away and really just knowing the game plan and knowing how to scout to try to take away obviously what they want to do best and trying to put us in a favorable position on the defensive end, so we could turn that defense into offense,” Pavelonis said.
Thankfully for the Lady Panthers, three of the next four games are at home. They will face the Rock Island Rocks (4-2, 0-1 Western Big 6) on Thursday at 7 p.m., followed by two more home games against the Galesburg Silver Streaks (4-0, 1-0) on Saturday and against the Moline Maroons (3-4, 1-0) the following Thursday, Dec. 7. The Lady Panthers conclude next week with their sole road game over the next two weeks with a battle against the Sterling Golden Warriors (1-2, 0-1) on Dec. 9.
“I am thankful we do not have to go on the yellow bus,” Pavelonis chuckled about the Lady Panthers’ next three games at home. “I’m excited that since the weather is getting colder, it’s nice to be at home and get our community to get to watch us play in front of our home fans. We are all excited.”
However, with the early non-conference play now out of the way, the tougher WB6 matches are on the horizon. The Lady Panthers are prepared for the December slate of conference games.
“We're just getting stronger and stronger through the season, and we're going to continue to get stronger as the season goes on,” Bohnert said.
“We are just ready to play – ‘staying hungry’, as Pavelonis said all the time,” Awou agreed.
On the other hand, Pavelonis knows that the next several games are going to be a fight.
“It’s going to be a gauntlet,” Pavelonis said. “I think everybody in the WB6 is in agreement that you have to come ready every single WB6 game. You cannot take off any one game. Everybody is going to give you their best effort and their best shot. Everybody is well-coached. We better bring our ‘A’ game.”
Pavelonis wraps up each practice with a quote of the day, which goes hand in hand with the current Lady Panthers’ undefeated record and the challenging road ahead.
From current mixed martial artist and boxer Conor McGregor:
“You stare at your past and you will end up staying there. People can get comfortable with a win and slack off. You sleep on a win, and you will wake up on a loss.”
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