Class 4A Barrington supersectional preview

By John Lemon and Josh Leusch

Class 4A Barrington supersectional

When: Monday, 7:30 p.m.

The teams: Geneva (25-6) vs. Zion-Benton (25-6)

The coaches: Gina Nolan (Geneva) and Tanya Johnson (Zion-Benton)

The starters

Zion-Benton: No. 3 Octavia Crump (5-foot-11, Jr. F); No. 5 Helena Rodriguez (5-6, Sr. G); No. 21 Samantha Rodriguez (5-8, Fr. G-F); No. 34 Morgan Garrett (5-10, Sr. F); No. 23 Juanita Robinson (5-11, Sr., G-F).

Geneva: No. 14 Kat Yelle (5-8, Sr., G), No. 33 Ashley Santos (5-10 Jr., G/F), No. 22 Sammy Scofield (5-9 Sr., G), No. 23 Katelyn Allen (5-9 Sr., G), No. 12 Kelsey Pease (5-8 Sr., F).

How they got here: Geneva defeated St. Charles East 82-45 and St. Charles North 52-31 to win the St. Charles East regional then downed Hononegah 70-60 and Cary-Grove 55-53 to win the Jacobs sectional. The Vikings have won 10 straight games.

Zion-Benton defeated Lake Zurich 53-42 and Hersey 57-32 to win Zion-Benton regional. The Zee-Bees upset top-seeded Libertyville 45-38 in the Mundelein sectional semifinal before their 41-37 overtime triumph over Barrington in the championship game.

Common opponents: There’s only two. Cary-Grove, the team Geneva just beat Thursday night to win its third straight sectional, had not lost since Zion-Benton beat them 54-52 on Dec. 22 Lake Park is the other. Both teams beat the Lancers, Geneva by 18 points and the Zee-Bees by 10 points.

Outlook: Not so long ago – two years to be specific – Geneva was the new kid on the block in this game. That’s when Geneva defeated New Trier in the Loyola supersectional to get to state for the first time in school history. Now the Vikings come in with all the big-game experience on their side as the Zee-Bees just won their first sectional crown in school history under second-year coach Tanya Johnson.

Johnson, who has led Zion to a school-record for wins, is no stranger to sectional titles, having also won them at Marillac and Loyola High Schools. Her Loyola teams won back-to-back state crowns in 1997 and 1998. She and assistant Frank Mattucci have combined for five sectional crowns.

Mattucci won sectionals at Stevenson and Luther North High schools. He won back-to-back state titles at Stevenson in 1995 and 1996, the two years prior to Johnson’s state title wins at Loyola. Johnson credits Mattucci for handling the Zee-Bees’ defensive schemes.

You can be sure their defensive attention scouting Geneva will include Allen, a senior who will play soccer in college at South Carolina Upstate and has taken her basketball game to another level in the postseason. She started with a career-high 17 points in her final regular season game to finish with a 6.1 average during the regular season. Allen has more than doubled that to 12.5 points a game in the playoffs.

Allen scored 23 points in Geneva’s sectional semifinal win Tuesday and followed with 12 points including the winning free throws with 3.6 seconds left Thursday. “She is in it to win it right now,” Nolan observed after the Vikings’ win Thursday night.

Allen’s strong play has given another dimension to Geneva’s offense with Yelle (17.6 ppg during the regular season; 15 ppg in the postseason) and Santos (15.6 ppg regular season; 16 ppg in the playoffs) continuing to play excellent basketball.

Johnson, who picked up her 600th career win this season at the Mundelein Holiday Classic, is in her second season at Zion. Her team was 18-9 last season. The Zee-Bees never led in regulation against Barrington but scored the first six points of the extra session. Crump (12 ppg) and Robinson (11 ppg) are North Suburban all-conference selections. Crump is the Zee-Bees’ big force in the middle. She scored a game-high 18 points against Barrington, including 4 in overtime. She is the team’s top rebounder, and played with 4 fouls for the final 9:50 of the contest.

— Compiled by John Lemon