Productive senior night for St. Edward
It was a happy Senior Night for St. Edward's girls basketball team, but the Green Wave is hoping they are far from finished with the season.
The Green Wave hit visiting Hinckley-Big Rock with a stifling defense in the second half and had just enough offense to come away with a 44-33 nonconference victory in Elgin, St. Edward's fifth win in a row.
"We've been working real hard in practice on our transition defense," said Wave senior Maddie Kerr, who had 11 points and 4 assists in the win, including a nifty behind-the-back pass to junior Rena Ranallo late in the third quarter.
"That was one of our biggest weaknesses and the improvement showed tonight."
But while it was the senior's night on Locust Street, it was the junior Ranallo who sparked St. Edward (19-7) to the win over the Class 1A Royals, the 2009 and 2010 Class 1A state champions who made it to the Elite Eight again last season and have been ranked most of this season.
Ranallo, who did not start so that coach Michelle Dawson could start five of her six seniors, came in late in the first quarter with her team trailing the Royals 3-2. She promptly hit back-to-back 3-pointers as well as a 2-pointer to give the Wave a 10-3 lead.
"Rena's really been coming on lately," said Dawson of her point guard, who scored a team-high 19 points to go along with 4 assists and 5 steals. "I was real happy with our team play all around tonight."
St. Edward led by 8 early in the second quarter before the Royals (20-6) took a brief 15-14 lead. But Kerr hit a basket and sophomore Katie Swanson scored twice to close out the half and the Wave led 20-15 at the break.
Then came that defense. The Wave outscored H-BR 11-0 in the third quarter before Royals' all-state guard Kaitlin Phillips made a layup at the quarter buzzer.
St. Edward took a 31-17 lead into the fourth quarter and a rout appeared to be imminent, but Hinckley fought back with a 9-2 run to close to within 7, 33-26, with 3:12 left in the game. Ranallo made a layup with 2:24 left and was then fouled on a layup attempt after she stole the ball. She made both free throws to make it as 37-26 game with 2:02 to go and the closest Hinckley would get from there would be nine.
"Hinckley-Big Rock is an outstanding team," said Dawson, whose team closes out the regular season at Aurora Central Catholic tonight. "(Phillips and Katie Hollis) are outstanding players. I give our girls a lot of credit for our half-court defense tonight. You don't always want to change your style of play but sometimes you have to tweak it for the other team's strengths.
"I thought Kelly Tripicchio did an outstanding job on defense tonight and I was pleased with our team play all night."
Hollis led Hinckley with 19 points and Phillips added 11. The Royals were just 11 of 37 shooting.
Dawson was just happy to see her six seniors Kerr, Tripicchio, Callie Johnson, Alex Lee, Katherine Von Ahnen and Paige Gannon come away with a win in their final home game.
"Tonight's a bittersweet night for everyone," Dawson said. "Most of these kids are three and four-year varsity players and you develop a special relationship with them. I'm going to miss them, but we're not done yet."
Westminster Christian 36, Elgin Academy 16: Claire Speweik scored 10 points to lead the Warriors (18-8) to a nonconference win. Kinsley Donahue added 7 points for Westminster. Ashley Barnes had 5 points to lead Elgin Academy.