FITHIAN — After starting the season 0-3, the Uni girls basketball team entered the win column Monday with a 63-45 victory over Milford in the McDonald's Comet Classic at Oakwood High School.

Senior Aran Yoo led the team with 19 points (including one trey) and 4 steals. Junior Rachel Skoza recorded her third consecutive double-double, grabbing a team-high 13 rebounds and scoring 10 points.

"Milford didn’t have strong posts that we had to worry about," the 6-foot Skoza said. "Another thing that helped us out was that we were getting to the line a lot more often. Milford had some good ball-handlers, but no particular player was a big threat."

Ruthie Welch added 14 points, 6 boards, and 4 assists. Fellow senior Sarah Pfander led all Illineks with 5 assists. She also contributed 3 points and 5 rebounds.

"When the game started, you could tell people were pumped and ready to play," Pfander said. "Even though I think they pulled ahead early on and scored the first couple buckets, we quickly regained control of the game. We were running the ball really well, getting people ahead of the play and hitting the long runner for I think probably 10 easy layups from Ruthie and Aran."

The Illineks built a 15-4 lead by the end of the first quarter. The Cats made a run in the second period, but Uni entered halftime with a 29-23 lead.

"Defensively, we were putting a lot of pressure on the ball, forcing a lot of turnovers," Pfander said. "We probably weren't as solid as we should of been, and gave them a lot of open shots. But, they were missing everything from the perimeter so it ended up being OK. Also, we weren't fouling as much as we did previously. I think we had like one player in foul trouble."

Milford never got got closer than 7 points in the second half. In the final quarter, Uni led by as much as 23 before coach Rebecca Murphy took out her starters.

"Though they kept on a full-court press the entire game, we did a pretty decent job of keeping our heads," Pfander said.

"Often, under heavy pressure, we panic and turn the ball over. And, even though there were a couple of times when we had like three turnovers in a row in the back court that they capitalized on, a majority of the time we entered the ball, brought it up the court, set up, and ran a successful offense. It was this kind of execution that improved our play so much."

The Illineks are now 1-3 overall, 1-2 in the Comet Classic. The girls will play two more tournament games this week: Tuesday against Georgetown-Ridge Farm (6 p.m.) and Friday against an opponent to be determined (time TBA). Both games will be at Oakwood High.

Uni's performance Monday night represented a major improvement over Saturday's 55-48 loss to Heritage. Even though the margin of that defeat was just 7 points, the Illineks were never really in the game.

Things began to turn around later Saturday in Uni's second Comet Classic matchup, a 75-57 loss to Oakwood. In that case, the margin of defeat was deceptively large. Uni was within striking distance until about 2 minutes left, when turnovers resulted in the double-digit setback.

"After the loss to Heritage, Merf basically locked us in the locker room and told us we had to come up with some sort of solution," Pfander recalled. "She told us we weren't playing like a team, we weren't meeting expectations, and we weren't executing. She told us it was up to the team to figure out what needed to happen. So, we sat and talked for about a half an hour.

"We tried to be really positive and encouraging. We talked about the best way to pump each other up, we talked about the best way to calm down when we started to turn over the ball a lot and lose control, we complimented each other and told teammates what we thought they were doing well.

"We came up with this idea to have a word of the game, something that embodied what we were going to focus on during that game. It was all just mental stuff, because we didn't need to change our abilities — we had the skill.

"So basically, our word of the game for Oakwood was 'gumption,' and I think that really sums up how we played. We played hard and we stayed in it. We brought things together. I don't know if it was the talk, or we were just ready to win, but during the Oakwood game we learned to play as a team.

"[The Milford game] was an extension of everything we did on Saturday. Our word of the game was 'challengers,' inspired by The New Pornographers song, because we wanted to come into this game, challenge the preconceptions about our team, challenge the opponent, and challenge ourselves to get the win."

THE SEASON SO FAR

2007-08 GIRLS VARSITY BASKETBALL: 1-3 overall, 0-0 East Central Illinois Conference
(home matches listed in bold)

Nov. 15: at Atwood-Hammond, L 66-59 (OT)

• Story: Illineks drop season opener in overtime
• Points: Rachel Skoza 16, Ruthie Welch 13, Aran Yoo 10, Sarah Pfander 9
• Rebounds: Pfander 6, Skoza 5, Welch 4
• Blocks: Skoza 4
• JV game: Atwood Hammond def. Uni 35-12
• JV record: 0-1, 0-0

Nov. 17: Heritage (at Oakwood H.S., McDonald's Comet Classic), L 55-48

• Story: Uni falls to Heritage, Oakwood in Comet Classic
• Points: Rachel Skoza 18, Aran Yoo 12, Samantha Nguyen 6, Ruthie Welch 4, Sarah Pfander 4, Karen Woodley 2, Marika Iyer 2
• Rebounds: Skoza 10, Welch 7, Pfander 6, Woodley 5
• Blocks: Skoza 5
• Assists: Yoo 3
• Steals: Yoo 3
• JV game: none
• JV record: 0-1, 0-0

Nov. 17: Oakwood (at Oakwood H.S., McDonald's Comet Classic), L 75-57

• Story: Uni falls to Heritage, Oakwood in Comet Classic
• Points: Rachel Skoza 18, Aran Yoo 13, Ruthie Welch 11, Sarah Pfander 6, Samantha Nguyen 5, Karen Woodley 4
• Rebounds: Skoza 10, Welch 9, Woodley 8, Pfander 7
• Blocks: Skoza 5
• Assists: Nguyen 3, Pfander 3
• Steals: Yoo 7
• JV game: none
• JV record: 0-1, 0-0

Nov. 19: Milford (at Oakwood H.S., McDonald's Comet Classic), W 63-45

• Story: see above
• Points: Aran Yoo 19, Ruthie Welch 14, Rachel Skoza 10, Samantha Nguyen 6, Jessi Sullivan 6, Karen Woodley 4, Sarah Pfander 3, Michelle Wong 1
• Rebounds: Skoza 13, Sullivan 7, Welch 6, Pfander 5, Woodley 4
• Blocks: none
• Assists: Pfander 5, Welch 4, Nguyen 4
• Steals: Yoo 4
• JV game: none
• JV record: 0-1, 0-0

Next game: Tuesday at Oakwood H.S., Uni's fourth game in the McDonald's Comet Classic: 6 p.m. vs. Georgetown-Ridge Farm. Click here for directions to Oakwood H.S.

2007-08 schedule: Click here for the Gargoyle Scoreboard.