Meadows battles past Hersey
When Hersey raced to a 19-6 lead on Rolling Meadows early in the second quarter, Mustangs coach Todd Hatfield refused to call for a timeout.
“We were just being careless with the ball and making turnovers,” the fourth-year coach said. “I wanted the girls to fight through it.”
Meadows indeed fought and fought for the next 22 minutes and eventually came away with a 42-39 victory on Monday night in the championship of the Season's End Tournament at Fenton High School.
The Mustangs finally grabbed their first lead at 29-28 when sophomore Alexis Glasgow tossed home a 3-pointer for a 29-28 lead.
The two Mid-Suburban East teams traded leads a few times in the final period before Meadows got it for good when Ann Marie Lynch made the second of 2 free throws to make it 40-39 with 3:02 left.
The defending tourney champs committed 2 turnovers and Meadows one before Glasgow made 2 free throws with 41.8 seconds.
Hersey (14-10) missed a pair of 3-pointers the rest of the way, including one in the final seconds giving Meadows (20-3) its first 20-win season under Hatfield and only second in school history.
Meadows has won a school-record 18 consecutive games.
“It feels good, I don't know if Meadows has ever won two tournaments (the Mustangs were also champs at the Mundelein Christmas tourney) in the same season,” said sophomore Jenny Vliet, who made the all-tourney team along with classmates Jackie Kemph and Glasgow.
“When we fell behind, we just told ourselves we've been in this position before,” Vliet added. “We knew if we played out game, we'd get back in rhythm and things would work in our favor.”
Back-to-back 3-pointers by Jen Hall (game-high 15 points) and Renee Poulos closed out the first quarter with Hersey ahead 15-6.
Two free throws by Corinne Busby (8 points) and Hall's fastbreak layup made it 19-6 before Vliet made 4 free throws in the next three minutes to cut the deficit to 19-10. Vliet scored 9 of Meadows' first 10 points.
Kemph picked up 2 fouls in the first quarter so her time was limited.
“It's always an issue when you don't have your point guard on the floor,” Vliet said. “I was just trying to keep my team in the game.”
Glasgow, normally a starter, entered the game midway through the first quarter because she missed practice on Saturday for a college visit.
“I told her nothing changes and to just be aggressive when she got into the game,” Hatfield said. “Alexis definitely stepped up and gave us the energy we needed when we were down 19-6.”
Glasgow (team-high 13 points) connected on back to-back 3-pointers that got Meadows to within 5 before Vliet added a free throw to make it 21-17.
“Jenny (Vliet) was absolutely huge for us,” Hatfield said. “She's a natural guard but she's all about team first and she plays inside for us.
“This one of her best game there all season, and she was doing it against a tough post in Maggie Hogen. So kudos to Jenny.”
With seconds winding down in the half, Lynch (7 points) broke into the Huskies' backcourt for a steal and raced down floor to make a buzzer- beating layup that got Meadows to within 21-19 at intermission.
“She (Lynch) needed that because she's been struggling to score a little,” Hatfield said of the Mustangs' leader in rebounds, steals and assists. “And she hit some other big baskets, too.”
Hogen added 10 points for the Huskies while Busby finished with 8.
“I thought we played a little tired,” said Hersey coach Mary Fendley, whose team is in a stretch of four games in five nights. “But we worked hard and for the most part made good decisions.”
Busby, Hall and Hogen were also named to the all-tourney team.
“Overall, we played a pretty good game against a good team,” said Fendley, whose club visits Elk Grove today and then hosts Meadows on Friday night. “That's all you can ask at this point.”