Meadows wins a cliffhanger
Stevenson had its Batman on Monday night.
But Rolling Meadows' girls basketball team had too much Bam!
Too much Pow!
And way too much Glasgow!
As in sophomore guard/forward Alexis Glasgow.
The 5-foot-11 superhero struck for a career-high 21 points in RM's season-opening 68-63 double-overtime thriller at Stevenson.
"It feels like March, doesn't it?" said Mustangs coach Todd Hatfield, whose club overcame a game-high 23 points from Stevenson senior Katie Batman.
"What a game, what an atmosphere," he added. "We beat a great coach (Tom Dineen) and a great program tonight. Tom wanted to play us before this year. But I'd been ducking him for three years, because I didn't think we were ready to compete with his teams."
Hatfield agreed to add Stevenson to RM's schedule last spring.
His team was ready Monday night.
Meadows (1-0) led 18-17 after one quarter and 28-26 at the half. Three Mustangs Glasgow, sophomore sharpshooter Jenny Vliet (13 points, 5 steals) and sophomore guard Jackie Kemph (10 points) each tallied 6 points before the break.
The Patriots (1-0), a 21-win team last winter, went up 38-36 at 2:52 of the third quarter, on a bucket by freshman reserve Taylor Buford. But, seven seconds later, Mustangs senior guard/forward Ann Marie Lynch answered with a basket to knot it again.
Stevenson junior guard Kari Moffat (6 points, 3 steals) put the hosts up by 2 shortly thereafter.
RM's response?
Another quick one. Glasgow netted a trey at 2:31.
"We like it when we score as the PA announcer is still saying the name of the player who had just scored for the other team," Hatfield said.
Added Glasgow: "We push. That's our offense. We push the whole time."
Batman nearly helped Stevenson pull it out from the free-throw line. Her 4 freebies, in the final 50.3 seconds of the first OT, capped the extra session. A Glasgow layup, after 2 free throws from Kemph and 2 more from senior guard Amanda Gunn, had given the visitors a 61-57 lead at 2:45.
"Katie," Dineen said, "gave us life after knocking down those free throws. We battled, didn't give up. But we got beat by a very good team tonight. We didn't play very good transition defense, and we didn't pass well.
"Meadows," he added, "capitalized on every bad pass. Good teams do that."
Batman opened the second OT with her final field goal, giving the Pats a 63-61 edge.
Stevenson got blanked the rest of the way.
Glasgow authored 3 of RM's final 5 points.
"We haven't had a clutch win like this in a while," said Glasgow, who worked extensively on her shooting last summer while playing for Midwest Elite, a Deerfield-based AAU team.
"We played hard, ran our stuff."
She had a tough time recalling her best game, offensively, in the 2010-11 season.
"Like, 11 points - maybe," she said.
Glasgow (2 3-pointers, 7 rebounds, 5 steals) scored 14 points in regulation and 7 in the OTs Monday night.
Twelve of Vliet's 13 points came from 3-point land; Gunn put in 7 of her 10 points after regulation; and Lynch finished with 9 points and 8 boards.
Pats junior Alex Elzinga (5 boards) scored 14 points, 6 in each of the first and third quarters. Senior teammate Olivia Whalen poured in 9 of her 13 points in the first half and came down with 8 rebounds.
"We wanted a game like this, just like this," said Hatield. "We want to be ready for our games in the (Mid-Suburban League) East."
Bill McLean
Palatine 55, Maine West 35: For a season opener, this was all about closing.
Palatine's girls basketball team trailed visiting Maine West 34-33 with 1:57 left in the third quarter.
But the Pirates' defense limited the Warriors to 1 free throw the rest of the game en route to a 55-35 triumph.
Junior guard Nia Pappas' driving layup made it 35-34, sparking the 22-1 game-finishing run for the hosts, who defeated West in a season-opener for the second straight season.
The 5-foot-6 Pappas and 5-10 senior forward Katelyn Meyer, who played only 19 minutes because of foul trouble, both scored 13 points to pace the Pirates, who led 24-22 at the break thanks a 3-pointer by junior McKenzie Wiedemann (7 points).
"Their point guard (Pappas) controlled the whole game," said Warriors Hall of Fame coach Derril Kipp. "She is a terrific player. Once we fell behind, we couldn't do anything. We didn't run the offense. We didn't get the ball inside anymore."
Mayer did a nice job getting inside when she was on the floor. She picked up 2 fouls in the first three minutes and did not return until the second half, when she scored all 13 of her points.
"It was really frustrating on the bench," Mayer said. "But I had all kinds of energy in the second half. We all just started communicating on defense and everyone was fired up."
"For Katelyn to be out for 13 minutes in the first half and for us to hang in there, I was pretty happy," said Pirates coach Leslie Schock, who is assisted by her father Ed and Bill LePage. "I know what Katelyn is capable of doing offensively. You saw that in the second half. She has speed. She has power. Watching her play is very exciting."
It was an exciting first 24 minutes as the two teams traded baskets quite often.
Senior guard Amanda Hoye (9 points, 4 assists, 2 steals) scored 7 straight points for West midway through the third quarter. She hit a 3-pointer and two 17-footers as the Warriors led 32-31.
Freshman Monica Masini (8 points in her varsity debut) took a perfect lob pass from Mayer and tossed in a layup which gave Palatine a 33-32 lead.
"It took Monica some time in the first half to figure things out," Schock said. "She played much better defense in the second half. Brittany Collins (Maine West's sophomore all-area forward) is a ton. She is going to be one of the best post players we face."
Collins (16 points in the first half) scored her 20th point for West's last basket and last lead at 34-33.
Pappas came right back and gave the Pirates the lead for good with her layup at the 1:52 mark of the third quarter.
Moments later, Pirates sophomore guard Morgan Radtke hit a 3-pointer for a 38-34 advantage.
"That was the big shot of the game," Kipp said of Radtke's long-range bucket. "That made the big difference."
Pappas followed with a 17-footer from the baseline, then Mayer made two nice moves to the basket for layups in the final 37 seconds of the third quarter for a 44-34 lead.
"We are just playing so much better as team," Pappas said. "We played as hard as we could and we are playing together."
Senior Julie Johlie added 6 points for the Pirates and Laura Schweikert 3.
"At half, we really talked about playing defense," Schock said. " The only girl we really had playing defense with a sense of purpose was Katie Burke.
"We were playing individual defense in the first half. In the second half, we played team defense."
Collins also grabbed 8 rebounds for West while senior Megan John and sophomore Julia Huinker each had 4.
John Leusch