No miracle for St. Edward this time
POPLAR GROVE There was no miracle comeback this time.
Well, there almost was, but in the end St. Edward's girls basketball team couldn't find the magic it did the previous night, and the Green Wave's season came to an end here Thursday night in the championship game of the Class 2A North Boone regional.
As they did in the semifinals against Rockford Christian, St. Edward had to dig out of a hole against Rockford Lutheran in the title game and even though the Wave did come back from a 13-point deficit late in the third quarter, and took a short-lived lead, they failed to score in the final 2 minutes, 9 seconds, losing to the top-seeded Crusaders 45-38.
Rockford Lutheran (25-7), winners of 12 straight, will play Rock Falls or Port Byron Riverdale on Monday in the Rock Falls sectional. St. Edward, denied its second straight regional title and 15th in program history, finished the season 21-8 and had a seven-game winning streak snapped.
The Crusaders controlled the tempo early, just as they did when the teams met on MLK Day at Concordia University. Lutheran, an Elite Eight qualifier last year that has now won five regionals in the last six years, jumped ahead 13-5 after one quarter and had St. Edward on the chase all night. Lutheran led by as many as 14 at 25-11 midway through the second quarter before St. Edward closed the half on a 7-0 run and got to within 25-18 at the break.
"You can't drop (behind) like that to a good team," said Wave coach Michelle Dawson.
St. Edward missed its first 7 shots of the game and ended up shooting just 28.8 percent for the game (13-for-45).
"I thought we were getting pretty good shots, they just weren't falling," Dawson said.
Once again in the third quarter, St. Edward got behind big again before clawing its way back into the game. Trailing 35-22 after Lutheran junior standout Rachel Konieczki nailed a 3-pointer with 2:54 left in the quarter, St. Edward went on an 11-0 run and when senior Callie Johnson split the defense and rolled in a layup, St. Edward was suddenly within 35-33 with 7:03 left in the game.
After a Lutheran score, Rena Ranallo made 2 free throws to keep St. Edward within 2, and after the Crusaders missed a 3-point attempt, Johnson buried a 3 from the right corner to give St. Edward its first lead of the game, 38-37, with 2:09 to play.
But with the game on the line the battle-tested Crusaders stepped up. Senior Holly McKee put back a Sam Rundblade 3-point miss with 1:46 left to give Lutheran the lead back at 39-38 and after St. Edward missed two 3-point attempts, Lutheran rebounded and Alyssa Tunison found a wide open Amy Wieting (12 points) in the lane for a layup to make it 41-38 with one minute left.
"I just think maybe we got too excited and lost track of things," Johnson said. "We were so consumed with shutting down (Konieczki) we forgot about the other players."
In the final minute, St. Edward missed two more 3-pointers and Konieczki made 4 of 4 from the free-throw line to send Lutheran to the sectional next week.
"We just had to keep our heads," said Konieczki, who had a game-high 17 points to go along with 5 assists and 4 steals. "Hats off to (St. Edward). They're great competitors. But we've been working in practice on keeping our heads together and tonight we did that. We stuck to our game plan and came out on top."
"We made a good run and got back in it, we just couldn't sustain it," added Dawson. "The ball just didn't drop for us."
Johnson led St. Edward, which graduates six seniors, with 11 points and 4 steals. She finished her career with 1,085 points and did advance to the sectional round in the 3-point contest. Ranallo, a junior, added 8 points. Senior Maddie Kerr had 6 points and finished her St. Edward career with 1,170 points.
"I've been playing with most of these girls for four years and I love them," Johnson said. "It's going to be tough. It ended too early."