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Hampshire tops St. Edward to reach Lisle title game

Holding St. Edward to just 15 points by the end of the third quarter, the Hampshire girls basketball team had hoped it would cruise to victory in the semifinals of the Holiday Cage Classic at Lisle. But the Whip-Purs had to hold off a Green Wave rally in the final frame before coming out with a 49-37 victory Monday night.

The win puts Hampshire (11-2) into Tuesday's 8 p.m. championship game against Antioch. St. Edward will play St. Francis at 6:30 p.m. for third place.

After more than doubling St. Edward's points in the first half with a 23-10 lead, the Whips (11-2) took full advantage of their opponent's poor shooting to start the game.

"We haven't seen a ton of zone (up to this point), and if you're not hitting shots against the zone it can be a long night," Whip-Purs' coach Mike Featherly said. "We hit our first couple of shots, and it helps. It gets the confidence going."

Rachel Dumoulin, who finished with 10 points, missed her first two shots from long range before sinking a pair of 3-pointers, the first of which gave the Whips a 5-4 lead and started a 9-3 run to put them up by 7 after one quarter.

In the second it was more bad shooting and good defense by Hampshire to hold the Green Wave to just 3 points in the quarter, all of which came from St. Edward's big scoring threat Cece Rapp.

Six-foot-1 junior Emma Benoit drew the assignment on the 6-3 Rapp for most of the night, holding Rapp to 13 points, along with 12 rebounds and 5 blocks, while netting 13 points and 7 boards herself. Peyton DeChant (12 points) also went up against Rapp.

"We told Emma to not let (Rapp) catch the ball, and if she does give her some space," Featherly said. "It really was a team effort. I thought DeChant did a great job on help side."

It was more of the same in the third quarter, with the Green Wave (12-3) unable to find the bottom of the basket except for Rapp, who scored all 5 points in the quarter.

"We worked through a couple of things (offensively), but mainly it was to try and get the other girls involved so it didn't have to all be on (Rapp)," Green Wave coach Michelle Dawson said.

Part of St. Edward's scoring woes can be attributed to the loss of starting point guard Madelyn Spagnola, who will be out at least a couple of weeks with a knee injury suffered on Saturday.

"(Spagnola) was the one who was making everything flow, and we haven't had any practices since Saturday night," Dawson said. "Part of it tonight was trying to put the pieces together and fill her role.

"Really, we had some open looks but could not get anything to fall in the first half."

That changed in the fourth when the Green Wave scored 22 points in the quarter, including all 12 of Katelyn Castoro's points, but it was not enough to spark a rally.

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