Girls Basketball: Ramblers Hot Start Continues

coach Jeremy Schoenecker was less than pleased with his team through the first quarter of Monday night’s home game against . The Ramblers had come out flat again, shooting 1-for-7 from the field. Even with five forced turnovers on defense, Loyola trailed 5-4 after eight minutes and Schoenecker benched his starting five.

“We’ve been coming out the past couple games very lethargic and what not,” Loyola junior guard Anna Schueler said. “We need to bring that intensity and energy at the beginning of the game.”

Fortunately for Loyola, slow starts have been one of just a few problems at the start of the young season. The Ramblers righted the ship on Monday night with hot shooting and a stingy defense for a 49-22 win. The victory was Loyola’s seventh in a row, improving to 8-1 on the year.

Even with five returning players from last year’s team, the Ramblers’ hot start is surprising. Loyola lost last year’s leading scorer Katie Faught, who now plays at Loyola University-Chicago, and had a daunting schedule that included some of the top teams in the state.

“We knew that we were going to have a good nucleus back, the question was the strength of the schedule with and Warren and ,” Schoenecker said. “I think we’ve played four ranked teams already.”

Loyola’s only loss came to New Trier in the second game of the season, but since then the Ramblers have been rolling. Seniors Colleen McShane and K.C. Stralka have stepped into the starting lineup and Schueler and Michelle Ricolcol are deadly outside shooters. The Ramblers hit nine three-pointers against Regina Dominican on Monday.

But Schoenecker points to Loyola’s defense as one of the main reasons his team has reeled off seven straight wins.

“Defensively we’ve done a really good job all year,” Schoenecker said. “I think we’ve been holding opponents to like 34 points per game, so that’s also been a strength of ours.”

Loyola will get its biggest test of the season on Wednesday when Marist High School comes to Wilmette for a GCAC battle. If Loyola wants to challenge the fourth-ranked team in the state, they’ll have to quickly rectify their start-of-game issues or risk a repeat of last year, when Marist ran the Ramblers out of the gym in a 62-32 blowout.

“This group just continues to work, trying to get better every day,” Schoenecker said. “We have to keep working at getting quality shots and finishing plays.”