DeKALB – Sycamore girls basketball coach Adam Wickness called the atmosphere of playing at NIU’s Convocation Center like a circus, and when the Spartans and DeKalb played there last month, the Barbs had a circus-like comeback to match in a near upset of the Spartans.
On Thursday in a traditional setting, there was no comeback as the Spartans knocked off their rivals, 44-33, in a Northern Illinois Big 12 Conference East Division game for their 11th straight win against DeKalb.
“The Convo game is always a circus,” Wickness said. “This game is little bit of a different atmosphere. More of a normal atmosphere. We talked all week about how this was going to be a statement game for us, and I think we did a pretty good job of that in the first three quarters.
“Through three quarters they had 16 points,” he said. “That’s pretty awesome at the varsity level.”
Sycamore’s first 11 points came off turnovers, and the Spartans (22-7, 11-1 NIB12 East) led, 41-16, after three quarters before putting in their backups for the fourth.
DeKalb (11-16, 5-7), using its regular rotation, closed the game on a 13-0 run over the final 4:02.
Sycamore converted 19 DeKalb turnovers into 16 points. On the flip side, the Barbs couldn’t covert the first 11 Sycamore turnovers into points.
“I’m sure it’s deflating on the floor a little bit when we turn the ball over and they get a layup, then we get a turnover but don’t get to capitalize on it,” DeKalb coach Tyler Bantz said of Sycamore’s 18 turnovers. “In their minds, it’s a killer because not only do we give them the basketball, we give them two points. A lot of our turnovers we forced were passes that went out of bounds that we had to reset, get our half-court offense going. A lot of turnovers we had in the first half were steals that got turned into fast breaks.”
Kylie Feuerbach scored a game-high 10 points for the Spartans, adding five rebounds, six steals and three blocks.
She said after the close nature of the teams’ last meeting – Sycamore led by 11 in the third but the Barbs took the lead in the fourth – the Spartans wanted to come out fast.
The Barbs had a couple of early leads, but a 12-2 run spanning the first and second quarters put the Spartans in control for good.
“We wanted to keep pushing it up the court and get a strong lead at the beginning,” Feuerbach said. “It was a very close game (last time), and we really didn’t want that anxiety this time. We knew we could push it up and get some easy baskets, and we tried to do that this game.”
Faith Feuerbach added 10 points for the Spartans, including two 3-pointers during the Spartans’ early run.
“The reason they’ve won so many games is they have a lot of girls that can do so many things offensively,” Bantz said. “When they’re all kind of clicking at once, it’s pretty much game over from there. They’re tough to beat. When Faith is hitting shots from the outside, and Maria (Wright) is hitting shots from the outside, and Ella (Shipley) is hitting shots, in addition to Kylie, they’re tough to beat. We hit a buzzsaw tonight.”
By the numbers: Sanaa Finner led the Barbs with 10 points and had four steals. Shipley scored nine and Wright seven for the Spartans. Ashley Nelson had a game-high eight rebounds for the Barbs, while Florence Omodayo had six boards and three blocks.
Beyond the stats: It was the last meeting between the two teams as members of the Northern Illinois Big 12. The Spartans join the Interstate 8 next season while DeKalb heads to the DuPage Valley Conference.
They said it: "I thought we executed our offense better after the first quarter," Wickness said. "I thought our offense was a little shaky but luckily Faith Feuerbach stepped up, hit a couple 3s and got them out of their box-and-one. After that we were able to run our man sets, which is what we prefer."
Up next: Both teams have rescheduled games slated for Friday, with the Barbs hosting Ottawa and Sycamore hosting Yorkville, both at 5:30 p.m.