St. Charles East secures undefeated DuKane Conference record with win over Wheaton Warrenville South

ST. CHARLES – St. Charles East entered the 2024-25 season with one simple goal in mind — win the DuKane Conference for the first time in program history.

And while not a lot of people on the Saints expected that goal to turn into going undefeated in conference play, senior Corrine Reed had a sneaking feeling they could do it.

And as the season continued and the wins came coming, that feeling became more and more apparent to her.

“I didn’t know for sure, because teams like St. Charles North and Batavia can be tough,” the Akron commit said. “But once we got to 8-0, we knew that we had the skill and talent to get there as long as we came out with the same intensity every game.”

And in the season finale against Wheaton Warrenville South, that intensity was just what the Saints needed to secure the bag, as they went on to win 46-35 to finish off the perfect DuKane Conference slate.

“This is just so special to me,” said Reed, who was one of six senior players honored before the game. “As the collective group of seniors, and even our coaches, have gone through so many different battles when it comes to this program. And to come out of that and go 14-0, you have to look at how well we stayed together over the past four years.”

The Saints (25-6 overall, 14-0 DuKane Conference) became just the third team to accomplish the undefeated slate, joining both the 2021-22 and 2022-23 Geneva teams

“The girls have been working so hard towards this,” said head coach Katie Claussner, who was an assistant coach for Geneva during the 2022-23 season. “I don’t know if a lot of them thought we were going to go undefeated, but we did it. And it’s a testament to all their hard work this whole season.”

St. Charles East made sure to ramp up the intensity in the paint early in the contest, especially in the paint. The Saints managed to grab 13 more offensive rebounds in the first half alone to help take a 23-14 lead into halftime.

“That’s something that we really try to focus on is making sure we’re not just one-and-done on shots,” Claussner said. “We would love our first shot to go in, but a lot of times it doesn’t, and we need to make sure we’re there getting second, third chances.”

Junior Addie Schilb led the Saints with 11 points, while seniors Reed and Sofia O’Sullivan each added 10 points. Freshman Brooklyn Schilb was close behind with nine points.

“Anyone can step up on any given night, and that’s what makes this really hard to guard,” Claussner said. “We have six offensive threats on any given day, and they’re really good at sharing the wealth around. It’s not like we have a player that’s taking the shot every time.

“We’re going to find the best look for the best player.”

WW South (15-15, 6-8) didn’t make the feat easy for the Saints. Despite only scoring 14 points in the first half, the Tigers went on an early 11-2 run to start the second half to only trail 27-25.

Senior Emily Troia was the main catalyst in the Tigers' comeback effort, scoring eight of her team-high 14 points down the stretch. Senior Shea Carver added 13 points in the contest.

“There’s definitely glimpses that we see throughout the game, and we can see that we can play a No. 1 or No. 2 seed,” head coach Kasey Gassensmith said. “We just dug ourselves a hole early, and that hurts, but I thought we chipped away what we could.”