Stars special? You bet

At the beginning of the season, St. Charles North girls basketball coach Katie Sauber sat her North Stars down and told them something that would eventually come true.

"After tryouts, we told the girls that this was a special team," Sauber said. "You are going to go through some tough times, but we are going to do a lot of firsts."

Did they ever. The North Stars tied a school record in wins with 23 and won the school's first-ever regional and sectional titles.

The run and the fun ended Monday night, however, when top-ranked Buffalo Grove beat St. Charles North, 50-39, in the Class 4A supersectional at Elgin Community College.

"At Day 1, this is what we set out to do," St. Charles North guard Anna Conrad said. "Even though we didn't (beat Buffalo Grove), we played hard and got where we wanted. It obviously would have been nice to win this game, but there's always next year."

"At the end, we started to put the pieces together and saw how far we really could go," said St. Charles North center Kelsey Smith.

The North Stars ended their season 23-6 and will graduate two starters, Nika Sircher and Caitlin Winkelman.

This was the first time a girls basketball team in the Tri-Cities Area advanced this far since the 1998-99 West Aurora team.

"(This loss) came hard because all the other times, we learned from (our loss), but this one really hit hard," junior Alex Messacar said.

Buffalo Grove and its three Division I-bound starters, Ellen Ayoub (Loyola) and twins Allison and Maggie Mocchi (Northwestern) advanced to the state tournament. The Bison are 31-3.

"We were one of eight teams left in the state and we played against a great team that may possibly win the state title," Smith added. "It's the kind of game you want to play in."

"It's really amazing we got this far," Conrad added. "Yeah, we are disappointed, but we really can't hold our heads down. We played our hearts out and we left everything on that court."

Still, even after the loss, there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the North Stars -- next year.

Oh, next year. Smith and Conrad will be in their fourth year on varsity and a third starter, sophomore Kiley Hackbarth, will be back for her third year.

"I need to let this all soak in for a second," Sauber said. "I'm so happy with how they played this season."

Some of the players, however, are beyond excited already.

"We are going to come back, since we got this far, we know what this feels like," Messacar said. "We'll be ready to take it one step further."

"I'm already counting the days until tryouts," Conrad added.