Girls Basketball: Claire Hyde overcomes foul trouble, leads Wheaton North to gritty win at Batavia

BATAVIA – Claire Hyde was tagged with her third foul with nearly six minutes until halftime Tuesday, a spot the Wheaton North senior veteran knew she probably “shouldn’t be in the situation in the first place.”

“When [coaches] were like ‘Hyde, you can’t get into foul trouble’ It’s like ‘Alright, just play how I normally do,” Hyde said following Wheaton North’s gritty 43-36 victory over Batavia on Tuesday.

[ Photos: Batavia vs. Wheaton North girls basketball ]

For the Wheaton North sharpshooter, who finished with 19 points, it simply just means not being over aggressive and paying attention to the little details to help her Falcons win.

“I think I got two offensive fouls: A charge and an over the back,” Hyde said. “Those are the things that I normally wouldn’t do. In the heat of the moment, you just get going. So, I’m just [thinking]: ‘Just settle down; play your game and everything will turn out alright.”

Hyde’s third quarter offensive surge of 10 points to help build a five-point lead into the final quarter certainly can point to just that.

“We did not start off well in the first half offensively,” Hyde said. “We knew that going in [to the break]. That was our halftime [discussion]: Go out there and execute offensively. Our shot selection was not very good, rushed shots – myself included, I was taking horrible shots – so it was ‘Take that leadership, settling down and getting our offense going because that’s kind of the role that I play on this team.”

Batavia (8-3, 2-1) was able to whittle the Falcons’ lead to four with 5:04 remaining in the contest after Brooke Carlson’s jumper, but Zoey Bohmer responded with one of her own. After Carlson split two free throws the Bulldogs’ next possession, Carlson (11 points, seven rebounds) was tagged for her fifth foul, leading to an early end to her night with 2:18 left.

A battle of free throws ensued the rest of the way, as the Falcons (7-2, 2-0) combined for 4-of-8 down the stretch to ultimately wrap up the game.

Falcons freshman point guard Sara Abdul impressed with 11 points, while Bohmer had five points and six rebounds.

“You can tell what kind of talent is in that body,” Falcons coach Dave Eaton said of Abdul. “She’s an unbelievable player. I think the speed of the game and her figuring out [the refs] call it a little bit tighter than in AAU [is something to keep in mind]. You got to remember: After that quarantine, the last competitive basketball game she played in was in seventh grade. For her to do this stuff this early, you can see she’s going to be an unbelievable player.”

The Bulldogs were still down injured senior forward Tessa Towers but welcomed back veteran guard Claire Nazos back into the starting lineup. But, missed free throws, turnovers and shot selection choices helped build toward the Bulldogs’ undoing Tuesday.

“The biggest thing is: we got out of the way we like to play,” Batavia coach Kevin Jensen said. “And, [Wheaton North does] a good job of doing that to teams: getting you out of how you like to play basketball. That definitely got us. If we get out of how we like to play, whoever is on the floor, it’s not going to look as well as we want it. All those other things kind of tie in there and it was a comfort level we couldn’t get into and that tends to effect other things.”

Batavia was also paced by Jacque Schroeder’s six points and eight rebounds, while Nazos had four points and three rebounds.

“I even told [Schroeder]: There’s a spot [rebounds] where we can gain an advantage for rebounding,” Jensen continued. “She did a really nice job. There were times where it was a tough matchup for her defensively because she’s guarding somebody that’s playing more on the perimeter, but she did a real nice job.”