Girls Basketball: Khaliah Reid sparks Waubonsie Valley’s comeback win over Wheaton North at Falcon Classic

WHEATON – It can at times be difficult to adjust to a new school — especially your senior year of high school. But Waubonsie Valley’s Khaliah Reid is looking and feeling right at home on the Warriors basketball team.

The 5-foot-4 guard, who transferred across town from Metea Valley, is fitting in just fine and on Tuesday she played a big role in her team’s come-from-behind 52-43 defeat of host Wheaton North in the quarterfinals of the Bill Neibch Falcon Classic.

Reid scored nine of her 12 points in the second half, including a 3-pointer for a 43-41 lead and then a 3-point bomb that capped a 9-0 run to put the Warriors ahead 49-41.

“I knew we had to get back into the game so I just had to have confidence in myself and had to trust my team that they would trust me and pass me the ball,” said Reid, who has been pivotal in the team’s 12-1 start this season. “I knew I had to step up as a player and help get the team back in this game.”

The Falcons’ 1-3-1 zone defense slowed the Warriors’ fast-paced attack and meant Reid and her teammates would need to hit enough shots from beyond the arc to hold off a Wheaton North team that had reached the tourney finals last year and returned Sara Abdul, who was all-tourney in 2021 as a freshman.

Both Reid and freshman star Danyella Mporokoso picked up three fouls in the first half, which ended with the Falcons on top 21-16. Mporokoso would pick up her fourth foul in the third quarter but she stayed on the floor. And the Warriors stayed hot, scoring 21 points in the quarter and entering the fourth quarter trailing just 38-37.

After a slow start, Mporokoso still led all scorers with 19 points but received plenty of help from Reid, Arianna Garcia-Evans, Lily Newton and Taylor Curry. Garcia-Evans knocked down a pair of 3s, Newton had a timely 3 to go with eight rebounds, and Curry had eight points.

“This was a really good game for us. We struggled at the beginning, but we knew we had to finish it out strong,” Reid said. “I like it here a lot. The team chemistry just clicked from the beginning. I was pretty nervous when I first came here but as it went on, it started feeling like family to me.”

Abdul paced the Falcons with 13 points, Mira Spillane scored nine, and Zoey Bohmer had seven points and eight rebounds.

“That’s kind of how we wanted them to play. I thought we did a really nice job of forcing them to play our style of game,” first-year Falcons head coach Tyler Bantz said. “They’re averaging close to 70 points a game and they go on quick runs. I thought we did a nice job of eliminating that.”

But after allowing just 16 points in the first half, the Falcons saw the Warriors make 7 of 14 threes in the second half while tallying 36 points.

“We did a good job of forcing them into 3-point shots. In the second half they went 7 of 14, which is something that we’ll have to live with,” he added. “I felt like we left them uncontested a handful of times so that’s obviously disappointing.”

With the win, the Warriors move on to the semifinals where they’ll face Schaumburg Wednesday night.

https://basketball.dailyherald.com/sports/20221227/reid-sparks-waubonsie-valleys-comeback-win-over-wheaton-north/