Geneva's seniors go out in style

In putting the official stamp on its Upstate Eight River Division championship Friday night, the Geneva girls' basketball team did it in equal-opportunity fashion.

Each of the eight seniors who were playing their final home game on Senior Night scored in a 66-33 avalanche that fell on visiting St. Charles East.

Katelyn Allen put an exclamation point on her final game by tallying a career-high 17 points. That total was matched by Kat Yelle, who also had six assists and four steals in an all-around performance that showed why Geneva has gone 105-16 during her career.

Teammate Sammy Scofield has been along for the same ride with Yelle, and she finished with four points, four steals and four assists.

Senior Kelsey Pease had a game-high 8 rebounds to go with 7 points and two blocked shots.

It all added up to a clinic as to why Geneva (21-6, 11-1) has won three straight conference crowns, steamrolling the Upstate in its first year in the conference, and nailed downed six straight seasons with 20 or more victories.

"We have been playing really well and it added on to last night (beating Streamwood) and you always worry a little bit about Senior Night because it is so emotional," Geneva coach Gina Nolan said. "The kids did a great job and it was great to get all of the seniors out on the court in the first half and let them be part of something special."

Any worries that Nolan may have had were erased after Geneva rolled to a 25-5 lead after one quarter with Allen scoring 8 points and Yelle adding 6, while junior Ashley Santos scored 4 of her 12 points.

"It was really nice to have my best game on the last night," Allen said. "But there is more to do, and Kat and I have been talking that we can do well in the state tournament, and as captains we have to get the other players to believe.

"Things are really clicking right now," Allen added. "Everyone is passing and rebounding well."

Pease was rebounding better than anyone, playing on a front line that was depleted by the graduation of scoring power Lauren Wicinski.

"Those are big shoes to fill," Pease said of playing center. "At practice, coach really stresses getting rebounds and boxing out. We work on that every day and I really feel like that work is paying off."

Even though St. Charles East (10-16, 5-7) played Geneva even through the second and third quarters, the Saints never made a serious run. Center Morgan Vyzral led the Saints with 10 points, while freshman guard Amanda Hilton added 9 points.

For Geneva, it was mostly the killer combo of Yelle and Scofield teaming up for steals, impressive assists and being the lead commandoes on the Vikings' fast break.

"It is definitely nice to win the first year in the conference, especially because last year all of the talk was that we won a real easy conference," said Yelle, who has already earned her spot among Geneva's all-time elite athletes with 1,250 career points going into the state tournament. "We are all ready for the playoffs and pretty excited."

Yelle knows that Geneva has to approach the state tournament with the confidence of a squad that has done well in the past few postseasons.

"Sometimes we get going too fast and we need to slow it down and make smarter decisions," Yelle said. "We have so many fast breaks in a game, it is sometimes hard to determine which ones are good breaks and which ones you need to pull it back out."

But Scofield sounds like a player ready to put the throttle at full speed.

"We're looking forward to the postseason to see how far we can get," Scofield said. "We definitely like to push it and it is part of our game plan, but that is how we are dangerous when we are pushing and pressing teams."

St. Charles East coach Lori Drumtra knows her team took another drubbing at the hands of Geneva, but she looked at the positive spurts her team put together in hopes the Saints can build on that when regional action starts next week.

"It was not an easy task tonight, but I try to see where we have grown and I think we handled their press much better tonight than the first time we played them," Drumtra said. "We have to do better on defense in the half court, and Geneva is just very hard to stop."

Nolan believes her squad is peaking at the right time.

"We have talented players and they work hard at what they do and they have high expectations for themselves, and it's all kind of coming together here at the right time to start our new season in the tournament."