Fenwick finish puts away Prospect in Dundee-Crown semifinal

Fenwick girls basketball coach Dave Power, who is without All-American Tricia Liston for the Dundee-Crown Charger Classic, was quite proud of his Friars Tuesday night in Carpentersville.

"I think a lot of people counted us out," he said. "But now we're in the title game. I'm really proud for these girls."

The five-time defending tourney champs reached the title game by defeating a Prospect team that was playing for a title for the first time since 2001, when it finished fourth.

The Knights gave it a big try before Fenwick finally pulled away in the fourth quarter for a 47-34 triumph.

Fenwick (15-1) will face New Trier for the championship at 8 p.m. today while Prospect (12-3) meets Johnsburg for third place.

The Friars limited the Knights to 2 points in the fourth quarter - a layup by Lexi Glennon with 5:10 left.

Prospect took a 26-25 lead with 5:37 in the third quarter when senior Rachel Hunt made a pair of free throws.

However, junior guard Kathleen Roche quickly answered with a 3-pointer and Fenwick never trailed again.

"That 3 was huge," Power said. "It got the momentum right back for us."

The game was tied at 28 and 30 before Fenwick went ahead for a good on another 3-pointer by Roach with 2:05 left in the third quarter.

Sarah Hunt's 6-footer cut it to 33-32 but Fenwick got a 3-pointer from Alyssa Dengler to lead 36-32 after three quarters and outscored Prospect 11-2 in the final eight minutes.

Roach finished with a game-high 18 points.

"She had a great game," Power said. "Prospect is a quality team. To beat them by double digits in our current state of affairs says a lot about our girls."

Roach said the Friars have something to prove this week.

"We wanted to finish the game for Tricia (sidelined with mono)," she said. "We are playing for ourselves but we don't want to let Tricia down. We want to prove to everyone that we're a great team without her, too."

Prospect was led by Rachel Hunt (12 points) and Sarah Winans (11 points, all in the first half).

"That No. 21 (Winans) is really a good shooter," Roach said of Winans, who hit three 3-pointers in the first half. We were always looking for her in the second half."

Prospect trailed 19-9 after one quarter but rallied to within 21-18 in the second quarter, ignited by pair of 3s from Winans.

"We fought really well," Winans said. "We had a lot of people step up. We tried to stay with them. It was a fun game."

Rachel Hunt also pulled down 5 rebounds while her sister had 4 along with 5 points.

"This was a great opportunity," Rachel Hunt said. "I think we learned how important rebounding is. We have to do a better job. But more important, we had too many possessions on offense we were not connecting and not finding the open person. It hurt us in the long run."

Junior forward Marissa Pettenuzzo handed out 3 assists along with a rebound bucket that gave Prospect it first points after Fenwick jumped ahead 5-0.

"You can't win a game scoring 2 points in the fourth quarter," said Knights coach Martha Kelly. "The key was rebounding. They outrebounded us at both ends. If we do a better job there, the game is closer.

"I thought we did a good job defensively. We held them to the low 40s until the final three minutes so that should put us in a position to win. We did the things we wanted to do. We just struggled at times to knock down shots."

"Now we've got to go out and look for a third-place finish," Winans said.