St. Edward getting contributions from many
Don't look now, but the girls basketball postseason is almost upon us.
Class 1A and 2A girls teams will begin state tournament play less than two weeks from now, with regionals opening around the state on Monday, Feb. 7.
One of those regionals will be played at St. Edward and if the top-seeded and host Green Wave keep playing like they have the past couple of weeks, a trip to the Westminster Christian sectional should be in the cards.
St. Edward may not have played any better all season than it did Friday night, when the Green Wave held on for an exciting 62-61 win over St. Francis.
More than anything, what came out of Friday night's win was the return of 6-foot-1 junior Alex Lee, who has been sidelined the better part of the last month with two broken fingers.
Lee played sparingly in her first game back Friday but Green Wave coach Michelle Dawson is confident the tallest player on her team will be ready to go 100 percent by the time the postseason jump ball goes up.
“Alex came in and gave us some minutes we needed and it's good to have her back,” Dawson said. “We'll ease her in a few minutes here and there and she should be good to go in a couple weeks.”
Dawson was also pleased with the play of 6-foot junior Katherine Von Ahnen. Von Ahnen played significant minutes when starter Paige Gannon, starting in Lee's place, got into early foul trouble.
“Katherine was out there diving for loose balls and fighting for every rebound,” Dawson said. “She really helped us.”
Having won three in a row after a three-game post-Christmas skid, the Green Wave are now 15-5 overall and 6-2 in the Suburban Christian Blue, where they still stand a good chance to finish second, which is about all you can hope for when Montini is in your division.
Rosary and St. Francis each have 3 losses in the division. Rosary is done playing Montini while St. Edward and St. Francis each have a game left with the state's top-ranked Class 3A team. The Wave, who host Wheaton Academy tonight in a crossover, play at Montini Friday.
Pairings time: The Class 1-2A postseason pairings were released last week and after Class 3-4A coaches seed online Wednesday, pairings for their postseason will be posted this Friday. St. Edward's Class 2A regional begins Monday, Feb. 7 with Lake Forest Academy playing St. Martin de Porres. St. Edward plays the winner in the first game the next night and No. 2 seed Westminster takes on Willows Academy in the second game. The championship game is Thursday, Feb. 10 and the winner plays the Francis Parker regional winner at Westminster on Valentine's Day. Chicago Latin is the top seed at Francis Parker, while Walther Lutheran and Timothy Christian are the other top regional seeds. St. Edward lost on the road to Walther earlier ane beat Timothy in the Lisle Christmas tournament.
Smith back Thursday: South Elgin coach Tim Prendergast said Monday night that junior standout Becca Smith, who is averaging 20 points per game, should be back Thursday when the Storm plays at Lake Park. Smith, who continued to draw mid-major Division I interest, injured her left knee against Bartlett last week while bringing the ball into the frontcourt.
“Looking at the tape it almost looked like a Theismann thing with the way she went down,” said Prendergast, referring to the career-ending knee injury former NFL quarterback Joe Theismann suffered in 1985. “To watch it on tape it's ugly. I can't believe nothing's torn or shredded.”
Prendergast said Smith, who had never missed a varsity start until last week, has been fitted for a brace and doctors have given her the go-ahead to practice on Wednesday. He called the injury a stretched meniscus.
“It's tender and sore but the pain is going away,” Prendergast said.
The Storm will welcome back their leader. With her out, they lost to Neuqua Valley 62-22 and then had to go overtime to beat 2-win Crystal Lake South.
“We're a different team without her,” Prendergast said. “But I was proud of the kids Saturday night for hanging in there. South gave us a good game and we were able to get it done in the overtime.”
Big week ahead: Other than losing to Fenwick, the closest Bartlett has come to losing a game this season was Nov. 30 when the Hawks held on to beat Waubonsie Valley 68-64 in the Upstate Eight Valley opener at Bartlett. Thursday, Bartlett heads to hostile territory in Aurora for the rematch. Waubonsie is 17-3 and after losing to South Elgin recently, the Warriors will need to win Thursday if they are going to catch Bartlett in the Valley title chase. One mitigating factor: Waubonsie didn't have standout junior guard Erica Jordan in that game. She's now returned from an off-season ACL injury.
Another test: Hampshire (19-2), which survived a 45-44 scare from Sycamore Saturday, puts its 37-game Big Northern East winning streak on the line tonight at Richmond-Burton, which is also unbeaten in the league at 6-0. The Rockets are 13-6 overall.
More postseason news: The Class 3A supersectional that the winner of the Burlington Central sectional feeds into will be hosted by Hoffman Estates High School. The Class 4A super that the York winner feeds to will be at Loyola University.
Final thought: Game administrators should be more up on IHSA procedures. Several schools are still allowing 20 minutes of warmup time between the underclass and varsity games. IHSA procedures call for, and the time allowed for warmup in the postseason, 15 minutes between games. Hey, we've got deadlines around here!
jradtke@dailyherald.com