Win No. 400 for Streamwood's Rosner
The first thing the Streamwood girls basketball team wanted to accomplish this week has been taken care of. Now, the Sabres would like to reach goal No. 2 of the week.
Streamwood was able to shake off pesky Dundee-Crown, defeating the Chargers 60-51 in the second semifinal of the Class 4A Jacobs regional Tuesday night, earning career win No. 400 for their longtime coach, George Rosner.
“It means I've been around for a long time but it also means I've had the honor to coach some great kids,” said Rosner, an IBCA Hall of Famer who is in his 33rd year of coaching high school basketball and has 358 of his wins in 28 years at Streamwood.
Rosner was hoping all along he'd be able to reach the milestone with this team, and specifically with senior four-year starter Hannah McGlone, who reached a milestone of her own Tuesday by eclipsing the 1,000 rebound mark for her career, thus becoming the first Streamwood basketball player, boy or girl, to score 1,000 points and grab 1,000 rebounds.
“I've been around Rosner since sixth grade,” said McGlone, whose older sister Megan also played for Rosner at Streamwood. “I've always tried to work hard for him and he's become a role model for me and someone I can talk to about anything.”
“I wanted to get it with Hannah and this team,” Rosner said. “The focus is on them. The goal was to win tonight and then come back Thursday and get a win in the regional championship game.”
That will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday when the second-seeded Sabres (14-12) take on Elgin Area School District U-46 sister school and top seed South Elgin, which beat Jacobs 64-48 in Tuesday's first semifinal. It will be the third straight year the Sabres and Storm have played for a regional title, with each team owning a win in those games. Thursday's winner advances to next week's Crystal Lake South sectional where it will play the winner of the Rockford Jefferson regional, either Huntley or Belvidere North.
Streamwood's win Tuesday didn't come easy.
Nursing a 27-25 lead early in the third quarter, the Sabres went on an 8-0 run that concluded with junior Kayla Hawkins hitting a 3-pointer for a 35-25 lead with 3:49 left in the period.
The Chargers (10-20) came back, though, and closed to within 3, 40-37, on a Kagan Faulkner basket with 6:14 left in the game. But McGlone and Jenejah Williams scored for the Sabres to make it a 44-37 game just 37 seconds later and D-C never got closer than 6 the rest of the way. Streamwood made 8 of 11 from the free-throw line in the fourth quarter, including 6 of 6 by junior Kiana Jeremiah, who led the Sabres with 19 points, going 11 of 12 from the line.
“Kiana had a great game tonight and it was a good team win,” said Rosner, whose team was 21 of 49 shooting and outrebounded D-C 31-23. “We felt (D-C) had a strong outside game and we had to get our on their shooters and not give them clean looks.”
McGlone added 17 points for the Sabres and had 13 rebounds to go along with 4 blocks and 4 assists. Her 1,000th rebound actually came off her own block. Senior Holly Foret added 12 points to the win.
Junior Lauren Lococo had 13 points and senior Emily Michalski added 11 for the Chargers.
“They battled,” said first-year D-C coach Sarah Miller of her team. “Give credit to Streamwood. Every time we capitalized on something they always had an answer back. I'm proud of us not giving up. We've come a long way this year and we've made huge strides. We're just going to keep pushing.”