By Michael Wojtychiw
Playing top competition can only make a team better. That is why teams from all across the state play in holiday tournaments, to have the opportunity to not only improve, but to also play teams they might not otherwise play and teams that will help prepare them for styles they may see down the line either at the end of the regular season or in the state playoffs.
Taft, which didn’t play in a Christmas tournament last year, jumped at the opportunity to enter one this year when Loyola Academy decided to host its inaugural Loyola Christmas Tournament.
“The seniors, they said they want to play the Christmas tournament this year,” Taft coach Brandon Lathon said. “So we cut a few games that we had from last year that I was expecting to play. It was just a count from there, we’ve nine seniors on this team. I want to let them go out and kind of make some decisions for themselves this year as well.”
For the Eagles, it not only meant an opportunity to play over the holidays, but got them game action during a period where they may have only practiced. Instead, they got four games, something that their coach and players were thankful for.
“I’d say the difference between last year and this year. at least we still had a lot of games left after the break last year,” Lathon said. “So I think we know what our identity is with this team. Now we know what we can do and who we can be. But we’re going to try to take the momentum that we have right now and take it right back into conference play.
“Last year, we probably practice seven or eight days on the break instead of getting the game action.”
“Really I think it was perfect,” Taft’s Grace Brumley said about getting a chance to play over the holidays. “We don’t have two weeks off. And we’re really staying together and getting ready for these conference games with the harder teams we played in this tournament.”
Taft used the four days after Christmas to its advantage, rattling off three consecutive wins after a first-round loss to win the consolation championship with a win over Conant 39-32.
Along the way to the consolation championship, the Eagles defeated fellow CPL squad Jones, while also taking out Oak Park-River Forest, in addition to Conant.
It was all Taft early, with the Eagles getting off to an 11-3 lead after one quarter. But the Cougars slowly but surely got back into the game, holding Taft to just six points in the second half.
The second half was similar in that the Eagles started off really well, extending their lead to 29-19 on two free throws by Gabriela Gonzalez with 3 minutes, 16 seconds left in the third period.
However, Conant would hold Taft scoreless for the remainder of the period, as well as the first 1:10 of the fourth quarter, drawing back to a one-point deficit after its first possession of the quarter. But a 10-4 spurt to end the game sealed the win for the Eagles.
“I think it was really they were out working us,” the Taft coach said. “And that tends to be a thing that happens to us. We’re short handed, we’re missing one of our starters this week, due to illness. So you know, when we don’t have the ability to get good, clean possessions, and then we don’t have the ability to not let them get extra possessions. We tire ourselves out. And so I think we got tired, you know, we got a little down ourselves for not making some shots and making some bad passes.”
In the team’s first game of the tournament, Brumley, who finished with 20 points in the win over Conant, scored her 1,000th career point.
“That was definitely a goal I wanted to achieve,” she said. “I knew when I was around 20 or so points away that I was getting close. i have to admit it was on my mind a little bit, especially when I started to get closer, but it’s such a great feeling.”
