COUNTRY CLUB HILLS | The Homewood-Flossmoor girls did what they were supposed to do Tuesday at the Hillcrest Holiday Classic. Now comes the tricky part.
The Vikings won their first two games of the tournament with a morning win over Thornton and a 55-24 dismantling of Harlan in the second round.
The win sets up the Vikings for a possible rematch with Marist.
Charnelle Reed scored 16 points and had fours steals in the Tuesday night win over Harlan.
"I think we played very well," Reed said of the Harlan win. "This was the first time we actually put a whole game together and played from the start and we got the result that we wanted."
The Vikings defense gave Harlan fits all evening and the defensive pressure led to some easy buckets for Homewood-Flossmoor. Lauren Parker had 10 points to go along with seven steals and six rebounds. Amena Brent added six points and eight rebounds for the Vikings in the defeat of Harlan.
"We worked together," Parker said. "We needed to improve on our chemistry and that's what we did."
The win sets up a possible rematch with Marist depending on the late outcome of heavily favored Marist's Tuesday night matchup against Sandburg. The Vikings (11-3) lost to Marist on Nov. 25, 55-51, and the Vikings are ready and anticipating a rematch with the Redhawks. The Vikings will meet the winner of the Marist/Sandburg matchup at 6 p.m. today.
"We're in the position we want to be," Viking coach Dana Noble said. "We think it's going to be Marist and we already played them once and it was a four point game last time. We think we've improved and we think we can hang with them right until the end and hopefully get them tomorrow."
Earlier in the evening, T.F. North was unable to overcome Rich Central and lost to the Olympians 66-50. Schenia Battle had 13 points and eight rebounds for the Meteors in the loss.
"It just didn't seem like we were playing as a team tonight," Battle said. "Everyone was on their own. We underestimated when we went in the game and we thought they were going to let us do certain things, but we got whooped."
The Meteors (7-7) trailed by only one after the first quarter but were outscored by eight in the second quarter and were never able to climb back into the game the rest of the way. Sabrina Montgomery had a solid game for T.F. North, scoring 10 points and bringing in six rebounds.
"We played bad," Meteor coach Tim Zasada said. "We played awesome in the morning against Lockport and then we just got flat out bullied by a faster team. They wanted it more."
With the loss, the Meteors will continue play at noon today in the consolation bracket.
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