Schaumburg 37, Conant 30
A state playoff atmosphere filtered throughout the packed Perry Gymnasium Friday night in Hoffman Estates.
The majority of fans watching Schaumburg's and Conant's girls basketball teams battle for first place in the Mid-Suburban West wore red to signify the fight against multiple sclerosis, a disease which has affected one of the Cougar seniors.
When the emotional evening ended, Schaumburg (18-1, 5-0) left with a 37-30 victory and first place in the MSL West by a half game over the host Cougars (15-4, 5-1).
"But this wasn't about Schaumburg girls basketball, this wasn't about Conant girls basketball," said Saxons coach Bill Murmann. "This was for Meghan Melone."
Melone's story was detailed in Friday's edition, in the Sports Extra section. She is not playing basketball this winter as she copes with MS. A total of $2,161 was raised through a raffle Friday night to be donated to the battle against MS.
"We were lamenting bad plays and turnovers but this was just a basketball game," Murmann added. "Real life experiences are much more important. Tonight, our hearts went out to Meghan. That's what counts.
"This was a great atmosphere for girls basketball with the electricity and energy throughout the crowd."
Senior Kylie Castans paced the Saxons' offense with 16 points while Drewann Pancratz added 10 and Gabrielle Blackwell 7.
Blackwell's spin move to the basket for a bank shot broke a 6-6 tie late in the first quarter and the Saxons never trailed.
The lead grew to 17-9 when Gryte Satas took a nice pass from Blackwell and scored a layup with 3:50 left in the first half.
Neither team scored again until the second half, when a layup by Emma Loos (10 points) cut the deficit to 17-11 with 6:50 left in the third quarter.
Back-to-back 3-pointers by Monica Danek (10 points) got the Cougars to within 29-27 with 5:15 left in the game.
"We gave her some open looks, and to Danek's credit, she knocked them down," Murmann said. "We took those looks away later."
Pancratz answered with a 15-footer from the baseline before Conant pulled back to within 31-29 on a pair of free throws by Michelle Rawleigh.
But Pancratz took a pass from sophomore Taylor Kosla and made a big drive to the basket past two defenders for a bank shot with 1:31 left, igniting a 6-1 run to end the game.
"It was a great atmosphere and that might have caught us off guard a little," Pancratz said. "Conant played its heart out. We tried to regroup at half and play Schaumburg basketball."
"We did it the hard way," added Blackwell, who battled some foul trouble (4 fouls) but still managed to be a force to the end. "We played real sloppy on offense. It seemed like we had no ball control."
Conant coach Dan Travers was proud of his Cougars.
"We battled," he said. "Schaumburg is a good team and when you play them your window for mistakes is less and less. Our pride was on the line after we didn't play well against Hersey (in a 27-25 win Tuesday). We played well in the fourth quarter (against Schaumburg) but we just weren't good enough to win it.
"We made too many mistakes against a good team. They're 18-1 for a reason."