West Chicago overcomes South Elgin at Oswego East

Early foul trouble and missed free throws throughout hurt South Elgin on Tuesday, but not quite as much as West Chicago forward Jessica Baids did.

The Storm struggled in its semifinal at the Wolves Winter Classic played at Oswego East after post players Alyssa Krause and Dijon Smith each got in early foul trouble and eventually lost 54-47. South Elgin (6-8) entered the fourth quarter trailing by 15 at 43-28 but managed to close to within 47-45 despite some shoddy free-throw shooting, only to have Baids and her Wildcats teammates regroup and help send West Chicago into today's 6:30 p.m. tourney title game against either Oswego East or Lemont. South Elgin will play for third place at 5 p.m.

Baids, who scored a season-high 25 points and had 16 rebounds, hit four straight foul shots down the stretch to help hold off the charging Storm.

"We did keep it interesting," said Baids, who had 10 points and 9 boards as the Wildcats built a 26-17 lead at the half. "But this is what we wanted, to get to the championship game. We're all real excited."

Entering the fourth quarter it looked as though there might not be much excitement or drama, but South Elgin's Becca Smith helped her team fight back to within a bucket after Krause split a pair of free throws with 3:03 left. Smith, who had 5 steals on the night, had 5 field goals in the final quarter to tally 10 of her team-high 18 points.

But the Wildcats (10-4) retook control of the game after Baids and Claire Monroe each connected on a pair of free throws in the bonus situation to up the lead to 51-45 with 1:43 left. Baids added two more foul shots in the waning seconds and Monroe one more to seal the win, while the Storm came up short in large part because they missed 17 of 27 free throws in the game.

"Foul shooting and post foul trouble killed us," said South Elgin coach Tim Prendergast. "But when we cut it to two I really felt like hey, we're going to steal this one. But our offense never really got going and we didn't execute well."

Prendergast felt his girls just didn't get going against a 2-3 zone defense which they've been seeing plenty of from opponents. "Against zones our girls tend to get stagnant," he said. "They're a good team and they executed better against our zone than we did against theirs."

Monroe finished with 8 points and 6 rebounds and teammate Katie Staiton had 7 points and 2 assists for the Wildcats before fouling out late. Even with the foul trouble, South Elgin's Krause and Dijon Smith each tallied 7 points, but Smith was not able to come close to the 25 points and 8 rebounds she recorded in the Storm's tourney win over Plainfield North on Monday.

"We kind of went dormant on the offensive end," West Chicago coach Kim Wallner said when asked how her team's big lead almost got away. "But I was happy that we pulled together as a team. And Jessica came to play tonight, which was also very encouraging. She's a senior and we've got to have her as a leader."