Cary-Grove's defense, rebounding do in South Elgin
It may have been the first time all season Olivia Jakubicek didn't have a free throw attempt until seven seconds remained in a game.
Didn't matter.
Jakubicek, Cary-Grove's cool-as-a-cucumber junior, calmly sank two free throws with just seven seconds to play Tuesday night, lifting the Trojans to a 49-47 win over South Elgin in a pressure-packed semifinal of the Class 4A McHenry girls basketball sectional.
The Trojans (21-8) get their second straight shot at a sectional title at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday when they take on DeKalb (26-4). Cary-Grove lost to Geneva 55-53 in last year's sectional final.
"The importance of those free throws was definitely going through my mind," said Jakubicek, who finished with a game-high 17 points as well as 12 rebounds.
South Elgin senior Becca Smith's off-balance 14-footer to tie at the buzzer fell short.
But while Jakubicek's free throws won the game for the Trojans on the scoreboard, what gave C-G a chance at the end was its defense and rebounding. Only two other teams Metea Valley and Waubonsie Valley held the Storm (19-11 to fewer points in a game this season. And, Cary-Grove outrebounded South Elgin 45-24. C-G scored 20 points off offensive rebounds. The Trojans had 15 offensive boards to South Elgin's three.
"That's been our bugaboo all year," said South Elgin coach Tim Prendergast of the rebounding disparity. "Tonight it came back to bite us. You're not always going to get the calls you think you should and our inability to rebound down the stretch was the key."
That and Cary-Grove's stifling defense, which not only pressured the basketball all night but also, with senior Paige Lincicum (16 points, 7 rebounds) and junior Megan Leisten doing most of the work, held Smith to just 10 points on 4 of 18 shooting.
"Take nothing away from Smith," said Cary-Grove coach Rod Saffert of the Loyola recruit. "She's a great player and she's going to have a great college career. But we had some players step up tonight. We had to control the boards and I knew we could take the ball inside. We got the job done."
The tempo for most of the night favored the Trojans, South Elgin led 13-12 after one quarter and 22-20 at halftime.
"At halftime I told them this was the scoring we wanted," Saffert said. "In the second half Paige and Olivia started feeding off each other."
Neither team held more than a 3-point lead the entire second half. South Elgin's final advantage was at 46-45 with 1:23 left when sophomore Kennede Miller took a feed from Smith, who had 7 assists, scored, was fouled and made the free throw.
Alyssa Lee then made her only basket of the game on a putback with 57 seconds to go to put the Trojans up 47-46. Miller made 1 of 2 free throws with 44 seconds left to tie it and when Leisten missed the front end of a one-and-one with 11 seconds to go, Jakubicek was able to tip the rebound in her favor and was fouled. Her two free throws then won the game for the Trojans.
"We came out with a lot of energy tonight," Jakubicek said. "We focused on defense and rebounding. I'm really proud of my teammates. We knew Becca Smith was an amazing player and Paige and Megan did a really good job on her."
Miller and fellow sophomore Savanah Uveges led the Storm with 11 points each. Uveges also had 6 steals. Smith finished her stellar 4-year South Elgin career with 2,038 points and as the second leading scorer in Fox Valley history.
"We just never got into the flow tonight," said Smith, who tweaked a lower leg injury early in the game. "We had trouble on the boards and they never let us get on the run like we like to do. Give all the credit to their defense. They played great defense. We hadn't been trapped like that a lot this season and we had trouble with it.
"I've had a great career and I've loved playing with all these girls. This program is on the rise for sure. We went 19-11 and won a regional championship. There's some good girls coming in next year that will bring the program up even more."
And that's what Prendergast expects.
"I think we're onto something here," said Prendergast, whose sophomore team won 25 games this season. "We started three sophomores and we've got a lot of good kids coming up. Sometimes you have to go through these things to get to the next level. We had 19 wins and won a regional. There's a lot of good memories."