Elk Grove eliminates Glenbard East
Elk Grove point guard Olivia Roback only scored 4 points Tuesday against Glenbard East, but she served up so many more.
Roback dished 10 assists to post players Courtney Lindfors and Ashley Capotosto in the Grenadiers' 47-33 victory at the Class 4A Glenbard East regional in Lombard. The No. 2-seeded Grenadiers meet No. 6 Bartlett at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the regional final.
Glenbard East (9-20) didn't start the game playing like the sectional's 15th seed, finishing the first quarter with a 10-9 lead.
"They came out real strong, real aggressive," Roback said of the Rams, "and in the beginning we didn't handle the pressure real well. It was something we had to adapt to."
Elk Grove (21-6) gradually pulled away, holding Glenbard East to 1 point in the second quarter and taking its first double-digit lead early in the third quarter on Lindfors' 2 free throws. Not until the fourth quarter did Elk Grove put the game out of reach.
"They defend well," Elk Grove coach Ryan Kirkorsky said of the host Rams. "They've got good posts and their guards are pretty athletic, so we knew they were going to be able to contend. If they hit some shots they're a pretty scary team."
"I honestly that we were going to upset them," Rams senior Nikki Hall said. "We had a strong first quarter."
The Rams, however, made just 34 percent of their shots, and they couldn't contend with the 6-foot-4 Lindfors and 6-0 Capotosto down low. Lindfors scored 19 points and Capotosto added 16 points and 10 rebounds, with many of the pair's points coming off Roback assists.
"Our point guard, Olivia Roback, was tremendous at kind of settling us down and finding our posts and getting us some better looks as the game went on," Kirkorsky said.
"That's what I try to do every game is get as many assists as possible, but I didn't think it was 10," Roback said. "We always like to have our posts touch the ball the most. Whenever we can get them the ball I try to do it."
Jamie Klepetka led the Rams with 8 points and Maggie Angst added 7 off the bench.