Scorza scores 20 points in win against Fenton.
By Mike Miazga
Correspondent
The Addison Trail girls basketball team turned in a strong performance at its own Addison Trail-Fenton tournament to start the season.
The Blazers defeated Lane Tech 34-33 and then lost to Leyden before finishing up play with wins against Elgin (54-52) and Fenton to end 3-1.
“Defensively we were OK at times. The first game against Lane Tech we did great, only giving up 33 points,” said Addison Trail coach Rob Schader. “We rebounded well, but turned the ball over a ton. We found a way to win. We scored a little better than I thought we would.”
The only rough outing came against Leyden. “We played a terrible first half against them,” said Schader. “We beat them in the second half, but ended up losing by like 20 points. We could have played better against them. We played better in the second half. That first half against them hurt us. We turned the ball over a ton. We have two more games with them in conference and it will be a good chance to compete against them and hopefully win.”
Schader was pleased with the other three contests. “That first game against Lane Tech was the first time we’d beaten them in a while,” he said. “Against Fenton, our transition game was very good and we shot free throws well against Elgin. We were 15 of 22.”
Schader also lauded the rebounding efforts of Nicci Scorza and Serena Gilliam throughout the tournament. “They rebounded the ball well all four games and that helped keep us in games,” he said.
Against Fenton, Scorza had 20 points, while Bernice Berumen had 15 points and Gilliam had 11 points. Vincenza Zaccaro hit four 3-pointers in the first game against Lane Tech. She had 19 points in that game.
“Bernice was great the whole tournament,” said Schader. “She rebounded and scored when we needed her to. She did a great job. Her sister, Brenda, played well at the point guard. She did a good job and hit a couple of big shots for us. She’s only a junior.”
Schader liked the depth his team had in the tournament. “We are young,” he said. “We played probably six or seven juniors and four seniors. So we probably had nine, 10 and 11 kids playing. We played a ton of kids and a lot of them are young.”
Addison Trail opened West Suburban Conference Gold Division action earlier in the week against Hinsdale South and will continue conference play Friday against Morton.
