Bonekovic tops 1,000 points

The Warriors survived a 44-43 scare against Lakeview.
By DOUG CHAPIN
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
CORTLAND -- For the record, Brookfield High's standout junior post player Morgan Bonekovic surpassed the 1,000-point mark in her career Monday night with 6:29 remaining in the second quarter of the Warriors' Trumbull Athletic Conference battle against Lakeview.
Bonekovic, who entered the night with 995 points, passed the milestone with an inside basket on a feed from Kelly Jones. The game was stopped and Bonekovic was presented with flowers, balloons and the game ball.
With that bit of history out of the way, the Warriors and Bulldogs resumed their contest which turned out to be as competitive and compelling as most thought it would be. Brookfield (15-1, 10-0) stayed unbeaten in TAC play with a 44-43 triumph.
"It is a great accomplishment and we wanted to do the right thing for Morgan," Brookfield coach Shawn Hammond said. "This was a big game and we knew the most important thing tonight was to come in here and get the win. We knew Morgan was going to get to 1,000, whether tonight or the next game. But we knew how tough it is to come in here and play and win."
Bonekovic's milestone basket made the score 19-13, Brookfield, but Lakeview put together a 12-2 run over the final five minutes of the second quarter to take a 27-23 lead into halftime.
Up-and-down action
There was plenty of up-and-down-the-floor action in the third quarter, but not much scoring. The teams combined to shoot 5-for-21 from the field and commit nine turnovers in the quarter.
Lakeview's Kiley Matthews scored from the left baseline at the buzzer on a nice feed from Jen Baker to leave the score knotted at 31-31.
"We don't want to run up and down the floor," Hammond said. "We want to get in the halfcourt set and be patient. If we aren't getting anything out of our fastbreaks, we're just tiring ourselves out. And we only play seven girls so we aren't very deep."
The fastbreak is a key part of Lakeview's (12-4, 7-3) attack, but the Bulldogs struggled at times.
"We had a few bad passes on the fast break and that hurt us," coach Glenn Rowland said. "But the girls played extremely hard and we did a lot of good things. We just couldn't get some of our shots to fall, and they hit some threes in the fourth quarter that sort of broke our back."
Late surge
Rowland referred to three straight 3-point makes by Jones, who was 0-for-6 from the field, including three 3-point misses, through the first three quarters. Her shooting, plus two buckets by Lauren Gentile, pushed the Warriors to a 44-34 lead with 3:55 remaining.
Gentile finished with 13 points, Jones had 11, Bonekovic 10 and Kodi Brenner, who sparked a 17-point first quarter for the Warriors, scored eight.
"Kelly seemed to be thinking a lot in the first half. We told her at halftime to stop thinking so much and just go out and do the things we've been doing all year," Hammond said. "Lauren just gets in there and mixes it up. She keeps fighting to get rebounds and keeps pounding away at it. She does a good job on the backside when they focus attention on Morgan."
Down by 10, Lakeview fought back to within 44-40 with 54 seconds to play.
Stalled offense
The Bulldogs made two steals, but couldn't get anything out of either possession. On the first, Bonekovic took the ball away on a drive into the key, and on the second, Chelsea Butler missed a 3-pointer. The long rebound, though, was run down by Baker, but Jones made a steal for Brookfield and was fouled.
She missed the front end of a one-and-one with 10 seconds left to play, but Kari Haywood, the only senior on Brookfield's roster, made another defensive gem, stripping the ball from a driving Lakeview player. The ball went out of bounds off Lakeview with five seconds left to play.
Though Bonekovic also missed the front end of a one-and-one, the Bulldogs didn't have enough time for two possessions and Butler's 3-pointer from halfcourt at the buzzer simply made it a one-point game.
Gentile finished with eight rebounds, four assists and three steals.
Bonekovic had six rebounds and Jones had six steals. Haywood contributed three assists and three steals.
Butler tallied 11 points for Lakeview; Alynn Martin had nine points, seven rebounds and four steals; Baker tallied nine points and dished out five assists; and Joanna Novotny had five steals, three assists and five rebounds.
Brookfield was accorded the top seed in the Division III district tournament at United, but Hammond said the Warriors are focused on the TAC race right now.
"Our number one goal is to win the league title outright, we don't want to tie for the title," he said. "We've told the girls they control their own destiny with a two-game lead. But now we have to play hard in these last four games."