Marshall, Whitney Young ring up titles

NORMAL -- To legendary Chicago Marshall girls basketball coach Dorothy Gaters, a state championship is a state championship.

Gaters' Marshall squad opened up a 22-18 lead at halftime, withstood a Freeport run in the third quarter, then closed out its record eighth Illinois girls basketball state championship on Saturday, defeating Freeport 58-47 in the inaugural IHSA Class 3A title game at Illinois State University's Redbird Arena.

"It doesn't matter to me," Gaters said of winning a state title in the first year of four classes in Illinois high school basketball. "(The medal) is just like everyone else's."

It was the 11th appearance in a state championship game for third-ranked Marshall under Gaters, the winningest high school basketball coach in Illinois history. Marshall last won state in 1999.

Marshall (26-7) was paced by senior Sarah Rogers with 18 points and 11 rebounds. Adrienne GodBold and Tatiana Walker each added 13 points.

GodBold tied Quincy Notre Dame's Karlee Gengenbacher for most points in the two-game tournament with 38.

"This is definitely a special win for us," said Rogers, a UMass recruit. "We've been thinking about this for a long time. We practiced hard and we played hard."

No. 8 Freeport (30-5), which had a 17-game winning streak snapped, opened the second half on a 10-0 run to take a 28-24 lead midway through the third quarter, but the Commandos stormed back with a 10-0 run of their own and never trailed again. Marshall's defense created 26 turnovers and the Commandos scored 27 points off those Pretzels miscues.

Holding a slim 36-34 lead after Freeport's Courtney Shiffer scored with 52 seconds left in the third quarter, Marshall went on a 9-0 run to go ahead 45-34 on a Rogers jumper with 6:33 left in the game.

"It was starting to slip right there and we couldn't get it back," said Freeport coach Ryan Pierce. "(Marshall) just gets to the basket so fast."

Gaters agreed that was the final turning point in the 881st win of her storied career.

"That was huge," she said. "We wanted to get a little separation and confidence and put our opponent in a hole."

Freeport was playing for its first state championship. The Pretzels finished third at state in 1994 and 1995.

Junior Suporia Dickens led Freeport with 15 points and 9 rebounds.

Whitney Young 54, Bolingbrook 45:ŒWhitney Young won its first state championship in girls basketball, beating Bolingbrook 54-45 for the IHSA Class 4A title at Illinois State University's Redbird Arena.

The sixth-ranked Dolphins had finished third in 2005 and 2006 and were playing in the title game for the first time. They finished the season 30-3.

Coupled with Marshall's Class 3A championship earlier in the day, it marked the first time two Chicago Public League schools have won state championships in the same season.

Buffalo Grove claimed the third-place trophy, downing Marist 66-50 in the final game of coach Tom Dineen's 29-year career at Buffalo Grove.

"We knew in the city that us and Marshall were the two best teams and we knew we both had a good chance to win state championships," said Young coach Corry Irvin.

For Bolingbrook, which won the 2006 championship, it was the second straight year of a runner-up finish. The Raiders lost to Fenwick in last year's title game. They finished this season 28-4.

Junior Ashlee Anderson led Young with 14 points. Junior Porsha Harris had 11 points and 7 rebounds, and senior point guard D'Frantz Smart had 9 points, all in the first half.

Harris came alive in the second half, just as she did in Friday's semifinal win over Buffalo Grove.

"In the first half I picked up some stupid fouls," Harris said. "But when it's crunch time I bring my 'A' game."

The game was tied 20-20 at halftime and Young led 32-30 after the third quarter. But then the Dolphins went on an 8-1 run to start the fourth quarter, a run that led them to the win.

Anderson started the run with a basket and a a free throw just 13 seconds into the fourth quarter to make it 35-31. After a Bolingbrook free throw, the Dolphins scored the next five points and opened up a 40-31 lead when Kiara Conner scored off an offensive rebound with 4:42 to play. Conner had 11 rebounds in the game as Young outrebounded Bolingbrook 29-19. Young also made 19 of its 37 field goal attempts, including 4 of 7 from 3-point range.

"Rebounding, rebounding, rebounding," said Bolingbrook coach Tony Smith. "They got 2, 3, 4 chances and we got one. In the second half we missed shots and we didn't rebound."

Bolingbrook did close the gap to 47-42 after two free throws by freshman Ariel Massengale with 1:43 to play but Smart was able to control the basketball and Young's Chanise Jenkins sealed the win by scoring her team's final 7 points, 5 of them from the free-throw line.

"It starts with D'Frantz," Irvin said. "She's our senior point guard. When (Bolingbrook) beat us down here (in the 2006 semifinals) we let them take it from us. We weren't going to let that happen tonight. D'Frantz wasn't going to let that happen tonight."

Massengale had 22 points to lead Bolingbrook, which shot just 13-of-38 from the field.

"She's a special player," Smith said of Massengale. "Hopefully, she can bring us back down here for three straight titles."

In the third-place game, Buffalo Grove coach Dineen closed out his career with his 677th career win as his Bison defeated Marist.

Dineen, 677-229 in 29 years at Buffalo Grove, is the third winningest girls basketball coach in IHSA history. This was his ninth trip to the state tournament and his 2000 team won the Class AA championship.

"It hit me walking (off the court)," Dineen said. "It's a pretty fitting way to end it. We got to finish our season with a win."

Third-ranked Buffalo Grove (33-4) raced out to a 20-5 lead after one quarter and extended it to 40-20 by halftime. The Bison hit 16-of-29 shots in the first half, including 5-of-12 from 3-point range. The Bison finished the game with nine 3-pointers, tying the record for most 3-pointers by a team in a state tournament game. Marist hit eight from long range as the teams combined to break the 3-point record by two teams in a state final tournament game.

Seniors Ellen Ayoub and Allison Mocchi led Buffalo Grove with 24 and 17 points respectively. Sophomore Heather Nisbet added 13 as the Bison made 25 of their 46 field goal attempts, including 9-of-19 from 3-point range.

Sophomore Haley Stercic led Marist (25-10) with 19 points and Aileen Gorman added 10. The RedHawks of coach Mary Pat Connolly, in just their sixth year with a girls basketball program, were participating in their first state final tournament.