York surprises second-seeded Hoffman Estates

Hoffman Estates' girls basketball team enjoyed one of its finest regular season in girls basketball history.

Unfortunately for the Hawks, their postseason was cut short after one game as No. 18-seeded York stunned No. 2 Hoffman Estates 57-48 in the York regional semifinal game on Wednesday night.

The Dukes (12-17) converted 9 of 15 3-pointers and led for the majority of the contest to end the Hawks' season at 24-4.

Hoffman's all-time career scoring leader Megan Fischer closed out her career with a game-high 17 points while sophomore Jada Stotts added 8 for the Hawks, who fell behind by 10 with 4:08 left on a layup by York 5-foot-9 senior Courtney Owens (14 points).

Hoffman could not get closer than 6 the rest of the way.

"It's not like we came in too confident or cocky," Stotts said. "Those 3-pointers they made on us really hurt. We didn't know they were coming.

"We thought this was our year to do something in the state tournament but it didn't work out. I wish we had played another game closer to this one (the Hawks' last game was eight days ago)."

York played Tuesday night when it won its play-in game over No. 16 Rolling Meadows 36-25.

"This is so exciting and crazy," said Owens who tossed in a pair of 3-pointers. "Our coach (Frank Kaminsky) pumped us up and said we could win this game. We were just finding the open man and making a lot of cuts which gave us a lot of easy shots."

Stotts delivered a nice pass to Alex Wulbecker, who converted a layup to tie the game at 17-17 after one quarter.

Owens' 3-pointer put York ahead 25-19 midway through the second quarter and the Dukes maintained that 5-point cushion at half.

Junior Evan Semmelhack, who also scored 14 points, hit one of her 4 3-pointers to start the second half and the Dukes enjoyed an 8-point lead.

Trailing 36-30, Hoffman pulled to within 2 points on Megan Evans' 6-foot bank shot in the lane and 2 free throws by Fischer with 2:50 left in the third quarter.

But the Dukes answered with another 3-pointer by Semmelhack and a 17-footer by Owens for a 41-34 lead. Stefanie Matsas made a nice pass to Owens for a layup with five seconds left in the third quarter to give the hosts a 43-34 lead.

Hoffman never got closer than 6.

The Hawks won 19 straight games before their last loss Wednesday in the Mid-Suburban League championship game to state-ranked Wheeling.

"Their record didn't matter to us," said Matsas, a senior guard. "Coach had us well prepared and we came out and played with our hearts."

Junior Megan Bernardoni chipped in 7 points for Hoffman while Evans had 6. Wulbecker and Carol King each had 5.

"We were playing catch-up the whole game," said Hawks coach Mike Nocella. "I can't remember them missing many 3s. And they banked in four of them which hurt us. It's tough to win when a team makes that many 3-pointers. They just couldn't miss but to our credit, we fought back but just ran out of gas."

The Mid-Suburban West champs will have plenty of memorable moments from the regular season, including undefeated runs at the Fenton-Elk Grove and Mundelein tournaments.

"So many good things happened to us," Nocella said. "I'm very proud of these kids. It's just a sad way to go out when you play so well all season. But that's why they play the games."

This was Nocella's second season as the Hawks coach after a successful run with the Prospect program. His assistant Gabrielle Cottrell was one his standouts at Prospect.

"I came in with two weeks notice two years ago," he said. "And I've really grown to love these kids. I'm very proud of them."

Kaminsky, a 6-foot-10 center who played basketball for St. Rita High School and Lewis College (1,521 career points) and recently coached the St. Francis College women's team in Joliet, was also obviously proud of his team.

"With all due respect, Hoffman is a fine team," he said. "But our kids probably weren't the 18th seed. We had kids missing during the season with injuries and suspensions for a variety of reasons. It was a very challenging season.

"But the last two weeks they've come together a lot. We've won eight of our last 10 and the kids have really been listening to what we've been preaching to them. They are doing now what we thought they could do."