Hampshire's comeback falls short vs. Oswego
DeKALB - What if?
That was the question Hampshire's girls basketball team was asking after a heartbreaking 41-38 loss to Oswego in the championship game of the Class 3A DeKalb sectional Thursday night.
What if the Whip-Purs hadn't dug themselves a 14-point hole in the first half?
What if they had played the first 16 minutes like they played the final 16?
What if they had made more free throws and layups?
Those questions won't be answered. Instead, Oswego will play Monday against Johnsburg in the Elgin supersectional while the Whip-Purs, playing in a sectional final for the first time since 2004, ended a fine season at 29-2.
Not much went right for the Whips in the first half as they fell behind 23-9. The second half was a much different story, however. Hampshire slowly chipped away at the deficit, and Oswego's victory wasn't assured until Samiya Wright blocked Cassie Dumoulin's 3-point attempt at the buzzer.
Chrissy Heine scored 10 points for Hampshire. Cassie Dumoulin finished with 9. Alex Dumoulin had 8 points and 10 rebounds, and Karla Vietinghoff added 8 points for the Whips.
"I couldn't be more proud of my kids the last 16 minutes," said Hampshire coach Sue Ellett. "But that 14-point hole was a big experience trap. You can't do that against good teams.
"If we were to play 10 times, I would expect (to split) 5-5, maybe 6-4, I don't know. They had a 3-point better first half tonight."
"I know if we would have played the way we did the second half and erased that first half, I think that we could have beaten them," said Cassie Dumoulin. "We came out ready to play in the second half. In the first half, we came out timid and scared and the second half we had our backs to the wall and we put up a good fight."
Hampshire missed 10 of its 13 free-throw attempts and probably a similar number of layups.
"I think tonight we basically rushed everything," said Heine. "We kind of got overexcited. We just needed to take our time, especially on free throws. You've got 5 or 10 seconds, you just need to take a deep breath and relax."
Cassie Dumoulin, not normally a 3-point shooter, found herself having to put one up at the end.
"When you're season's on the line, you've got to put it up," she said. "If it hadn't been blocked, it would have been interesting to see if I would have air-balled it or what would have happened."
The loss didn't tarnish a great season for Hampshire.
"I'm very satisfied with our season," Ellett said. "The kids gave us everything they had. They came to play all 31 games of the season."
Wright finished with 16 points for Oswego, while Paige Harmon added 14.
The Panthers led 37-28 with 4 minutes to go, but Vietinghoff's 3-pointer ignited an 8-4 run to close the game. Jessica Van Dorin's 3-pointer made it 41-38 with 8.6 seconds left, but the Whip-Purs couldn't get a turnover and had to foul.
Oswego obliged by missing the front end of the one-and-one, setting up Hampshire's final shot. Heine found Cassie Dumoulin on the 3-point line, but Wright closed quickly and swatted it away.
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