By RYAN ARENA
Sports Editor

Take your pick.

Was the most impressive thing about Brooke Becker’s night on Tuesday that she scored 45 points to lift her St. Charles Comets past Sacred Heart in overtime? Or was it that her 45-point effort was not only not a career high, but not even a season high?

Any way you decide to look at it, St. Charles captured a 53-48 victory at Sacred Heart and have now won three of their last four games.

Becker’s 45-point night comes in second to a 46-point effort against St. Martin’s earlier this year.

“We live and die with Brooke,” said St. Charles Coach Nolan Louque. “And she’s been stepping up all season.”

Jaymie Remondet added six points for SCC.

The Comets (12-10) led by three at halftime, but trailed 33-32 entering the fourth quarter to a Cardinals team that they had already beaten twice by double digits this season.

“It’s a credit to their coaches,” said Louque. “They played man, gave us a different look. It posed us with some problems.”

The shooting of the Cardinals’ Jennifer Sabludowsky, who scored 26 points, kept the Comets from shaking free.

“Everything she put up, she made,” said Louque. “We felt like we were in position. But sometimes people just score anyway.”

With the teams tied after regulation, SCC scored the first two baskets of overtime.

Then the Comets applied a recent lesson.

“When we played Reserve Christian (last Friday), we tried to stall with the lead and it didn’t work,” said Louque. “So we worked on that at practice, executing and not turning it over. It worked this time. They had to foul us and put us on the line.”

From there, the Comets kept the ball in Becker’s hands – a comfortable proposition many more times than not. She made her free throws and kept Sacred Heart at a distance.

He says Becker’s night was as much a reflection of hustle as talent.

“Probably half her points come off put backs, rebounds, scrap buckets from hustle,” he said. “We work to get the ball in her hands, but she doesn’t just go out and shoot every possession. A lot of her points are a credit to her all out hustle.”