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Burlington Central clinches outright title

When Burlington Central's Sam Pryor glanced up at the scoreboard with 30 seconds left in the Rockets' 63-31 Big Northern East win over Johnsburg, 4 years of dominance finally sunk in.

Actually, if you're keeping track from home in Burlington, it's 6 if you count middle school basketball for Central's five seniors.

But the mere fact that the win over the Skyhawks (23-3, 11-2) not only extended Central's unbeaten conference streak to 51 Monday night in Johnsburg, but clinched the Big Northern East outright for the fourth straight year was another accomplishment in itself.

"I looked up at the scoreboard and I was like, 'wow,'" Pryor exclaimed, this after she scored a game-high 29 points on 5 three-pointers to go along with 5 steals and 4 rebounds. "It's just an amazing group of girls to be with and I'm so lucky and fortunate to play with them. I don't know how I'm going to play without them in college, I've know them all my life."

"It's incredible actually," Rockets guard Kayla Ross chimed. "We're all very happy about it, it's a big accomplishment for us. We're all really excited, (going to) celebrate it and just look ahead."

The Rockets (21-4, 13-0) can put the icing on the cake tonight and stretch the mark to 52 in their final conference clash at Richmond-Burton, but even Rockets coach Mark Smith couldn't help but to reflect on its conference dominance even if he knows the Rockets have to set their sights now on a long playoff run.

"It's just a combined effort of five kids that have a goal to go undefeated in the conference," Smith said. "They knew that Johnsburg had one loss and the determination and I just think collectively their focus was so on target, tonight. They did not want to be denied and it's one of their goals they had."

Central didn't take its previous win over the Skyhawks a month ago for granted. After Johnsburg took a quick 2-0 lead, Central outscored the Skyhawks 21-2 the final 7 minutes of the first quarter as Pryor nailed 2 from deep and the team shot 9 of 16 overall from the field.

Pryor nailed a right corner 3 for a 24-4 lead early in the second quarter. Besides a 16-3 run for Johnsburg to close within 7 with 2:45 left when Central got a bit sloppy, the Rockets ended the quarter on a 11-0 run, fueled by a Pryor putback, a Shelby Holt 3 and a steal and layup from Pryor to lead 38-20 at intermission.

"We started the game with a great first quarter and didn't really look back from there," Smith said. "I felt like we could put a little pressure on them and keep those runs going all night long."

In fact, after Johnsburg cut it to 27-20, Central outscored the Skyhawks 36-11 the rest of the way. Central shot 52 percent from the field as Holt finished with 12 points while Becca Gerke added 10 points.

"They play hard," Johnsburg coach Brad Frey said. "They got all the loose balls and it doesn't help that they're really talented, too. We just didn't have an answer for anything."

The Skyhawks rusted out a 35 percent clip on 20 turnovers, as Jazza Johns led Johnsburg with 9 points. Leading scorer Aannah Interrante was held scoreless on only 3 shot attempts thanks to the defense of Ross, who had 2 steals while the Rockets totaled 15 steals.

"We know she's a very good ballplayer," Smith said of Interrante. "But we know Kayla Ross can guard anybody in the state of Illinois and I have no doubt that kid can stop anybody. She did a pretty nice job on Margaret Whitley (Geneva) the other night and she's just a phenomenal defender."

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