Girls basketball: Wilmington answers Streator’s fast start for ICE Conference road win

STREATOR – As good as Streator’s start was in trying to avenge a five-point loss earlier in the season to Wilmington, the Wildcats’ response Monday evening at Pops Dale Gymnasium proved to be better.

The Bulldogs scored the Illinois Central Eight Conference game’s first seven points with buckets from Maiya Lansford and Ava Gwaltney, but Wilmington scored the next 12 and carried that lead all the way to a 49-27 win.

“I just got done telling [the team] that same thing,” Wilmington coach Eric Dillon said. “Despite the fact that we started real slow and had to get into game mode there for the first half of the first quarter, after that we battled back a little bit.

“Streator kind of crept around a little bit, but I’d say halfway through the third quarter is when we started to pull away, and then we were able to step up our defense a little bit to really pull away. ... Overall, it was a good game for us.”

Senior guard Lexi Liaromatis scored a game-best 18 points for the Wildcats (9-18, 2-11 ICE), including a 12-of-13 performance from the free-throw line, to go with six rebounds. Clara Smith with 11 points, Sami Liaromatis with 10 points, six rebound and four steals, and Cole Drown and Nicole Quigley with four points apiece also paced Wilmington, which outscored Streator 49-20 after the Bulldogs’ early-game success.

“I think we were just slow on the defensive end [early] and couldn’t quite figure out how to pull it together,” Lexi Liaromatis said. “Then we called a timeout, and Coach gave us a good pep talk, and we kind of all decided to start working together, and it worked out in our favor.”

As they did in the opening minutes, Gwaltney and Lansford provided the majority of the offense for Streator (1-27, 0-14 ICE) – Gwaltney with seven points and three steals, Lansford with a team-high 14 points, including four 3-pointers.

“We started out great,” Bulldogs coach Jacob Durdan said. “We do that in a lot of games. I just wish we could finish as well as we start.”

Joey Puetz (two points, five rebounds, four steals), Jade Williams (five rebounds, three steals, three blocked shots) and Mina James (two points, five rebounds) were other leaders for Streator, which finished a winless run through the Illinois Central Eight.

“Maiya was huge last year on the JV,” Durdan said. “And that’s why we brought her up this year to varsity. She’s a spitfire. She’s a spark plug. And Ava, same thing. She was great on JV last year, and we knew coming into this season with the way she was working in the offseason she’d have a good year, and she and Maiya have been kind of a good duo for us.”

The Wildcats first took the lead on a pair of Lexi Liaromatis free throws with 1:30 remaining in the first quarter, making it 9-7, and led from that point onward. Streator, which committed 25 turnovers to Wilmington’s 21, lessening the effect of the Bulldogs’ 33-27 lead in rebounding, found itself behind 20-17 by halftime and 28-21 through three quarters.

Wilmington closed the game on a 14-0 run to account for the lopsided final in a game that, for the most part, stayed relatively close. It made it a season sweep for the Wildcats, who defeated Streator 31-26 on Jan. 8.

Streator is back in action Tuesday, visiting Somonauk/Leland.

Wilmington is scheduled to visit Herscher on Tuesday to finish its run through the ICE.