The Belvidere High School girls basketball team faced an eight-point deficit early in the second quarter against North Warren on Monday night.
Then, senior Natalie Sroka, the new all-time leading scorer at Belvidere, and the rest of the County Seaters found their groove and rolled to a 55-30 home victory over the rival Patriots.
Belvidere went on a 23-0 run, including scoring the final 20 points of the second quarter, to take control of the game.
Sroka finished the game with 22 points. The senior now has 1,537 points in her career, the most by any Belvidere girls or boys basketball player in history. Sroka surpassed the previous school record of 1,512 points produced by Chrissie Beha (2002-2006) in her 17-point performance against Phillipsburg on Saturday.
“I couldn’t do it without my coach and teammates. It feels great. To have such a supportive team and coach, it helps,” Sroka said about setting the Belvidere all-time scoring record. “I love my school. I love the small-school atmosphere. We have great sports. Even though we’re so small, we still have such a strong atmosphere. We have a lot of team spirit and school spirit.”
“I think her composure. She’s not a kid who gets a big head or anything like that. She’s always helping her teammates out. She’s always trying to build them up,” County Seaters coach John O’Neil said of Sroka. “She’s not very negative. I don’t see any negativity come out of her towards her other teammates. She makes great passes, she sees the court well. She’s just a special player to watch.”
The senior tallied nine points in the second quarter on Monday night. Sroka scored seven consecutive points in the second quarter, including a 3-pointer with 2:53 on the clock to give the County Seaters a 21-18 advantage.
“Just making our shots. Moving the ball around. Sometimes we get stagnant and we’re not moving. As long as we’re moving the ball and making shots, it all flows really well,” Sroka said.
“They started to relax,” O’Neil said about his players responding after a tough start. “It’s the same thing that happened against P’burg. We were tight. We weren’t shooting the ball well. Then, all of a sudden, once they started believing in themselves with their outside shots, they caught fire and they didn’t let up. They carried that out for the rest of the game. So, I’m proud of them.”
Sophomore Leah Wilson tallied 11 points in the second quarter and finished with 21 points on the night for Belvidere.
“We were down. We had to score some points. The team did great getting the ball in the second quarter and we brought it back before halftime,” Wilson said.
Ashley Losco, one of the eight seniors on the County Seaters roster, added four points in the game.
North Warren finished a 13-2 run and took an 18-10 lead when senior Hannah Allen scored with 6:12 left in the second quarter. But those were the last points for the Patriots until senior Selah Carper hit a pair of free throws with 5:52 remaining in the third quarter to cut Belvidere’s lead to 33-20.
Senior Jane Cook scored nine points to lead North Warren, which fell to 2-2 overall this season.
Belvidere bounced back from two consecutive losses to improve its overall record to 2-2.
The County Seaters were happy to be back home in front of a big crowd on Monday night.
“It always helps us having our student section and our fans behind us,” Sroka said. “It makes a world of a difference.”
