Rolling Meadows gets serious, tops Buffalo Grove

Todd Hatfield says he takes his Rolling Meadows girls basketball coaching assignment as a full-time job.

“I take it very seriously,” said the third-year coach.

After an 8-0 start, everyone else must start taking the Mustangs seriously.

After entering the season with 49 straight losses in the Mid-Suburban East, Rolling Meadows finds itself with two straight conference wins and preparing for a first-place showdown with Hersey (6-3, 2-0) next Friday.

Meadows improved to 2-0 after Friday's exciting 43-38 win over visiting Buffalo Grove as 5-foot-6 freshman guard Jackie Kemph led the young Mustangs with 15 points.

Sophomore Morgan Keller and senior Sara Shumaker each added 7 points for the upstart Mustangs while junior Ann Marie Lynch had 6, including 2 big free throws with 57 seconds left that put her team head 59-54.

“Absolutely unbelievable,” said Lynch about the Mustangs improvement in her three years on varsity. “Coming here from my first year (6 wins) and watching how the program has grown has been so exciting. We're such a family and that's what helps us so much. So much of this is our team chemistry. As you can see, we all do it with a smile.”

The Mustangs' fans were really smiling when Kemph hit her first of four 3-pointers for a 15- 3 lead with 1:14 left in the first quarter.

But BG's Pat Dudle, coaching on the floor where he played his high school career, watched his Bison (1-7, 0-2) claw back into the game and make it interesting the rest of the way.

Senior guard Emily Cho (team-high 12 points) scored 6 unanswered points in the third quarter to bring the Bison to within 27-21 after freshman Alexis Glasgow and Kemph hit back-to-back 3-pointers for Meadows.

“Kemph had some real clutch shots for them,” Cho said. “We are definitely improving. Instead of being negative, we are picking things up and being positive, trying to move forward.”

“Even with the loss, I think we took a step forward,” Dudle said. “Credit Rolling Meadows. They played excellent defense. They have a lot of weapons and Kemph really stepped up for them and made some big plays (with 6 fourth-quarter points) at the end.”

Kemph was also classmates with Glasgow and Jennifer Vliet (another key Mustangs freshman) at South Middle School, where their team lost only once in two seasons.

“It feels great and we're doing it for our seniors who have started it,” Kemph said. “We work so hard at practice. We are so prepared for every game.”

Senior Emily Georgoulis scored 6 of her 11 points in the fourth quarter to help keep BG close.

Her 2 free throws with 12 seconds left cut the deficit to 41-38 before Kemph and Sara Shumaker each made free throws in the final 11 seconds to seal the verdict.

Meadows' 15-3 start included back-to-back inside buckets by Keller.

“We talked about being King of the Hill, and defending our hill before the game,” Hatfield said. “Lynch, Maddie Conlin (4 points) and Shumaker have all been around for my three years and are great role model for our freshmen. And our freshmen aren't freshmen.”

Hatfield has known Dudle for a long time.

“I used to play open gym with him at Buffalo Grove,” said Hatfield, a former Schaumburg basketball guard. ”He is awesome. In my opinion, his team has played one of the toughest schedules in the Mid-Suburban League. He is a class act and he has good team.”

Dudle's team was still without 6-foot sophomore forward Bailey North, who is recovering from a concussion.

“I thought our kids played hard from the second quarter on,” Dudle added. “We started to play defense and rebound as a team. We were more tenacious on the boards. But Todd does a great job with his squad.”

A squad now contending for the MSL East lead.