Kaneland denies Prairie Ridge
Prairie Ridge did a fantastic job of shutting down Kaneland junior Kendra Brown for most of Thursday night in Maple Park.
But the Wolves didn’t box her out after Kaneland senior Lexi Schueler missed her second straight free throw late in a tight game.
Brown dove and gained possession of the rebound before quickly being fouled with the Knights clinging to a four-point lead with 26.3 seconds remaining in the Class 3A Kaneland Regional title game.
Brown sank both free throws, her fifth and sixth and final points of the night, and the Knights proceeded to earn a 45-37 victory.
“You never know what can happen with 26 seconds (left),” she said. “And only being up by (four) you have to go get everything you can, and if they aren’t going to box me out I’ve got to get rebounds to try to score, especially if I’m getting face guarded.”
Kaneland (24-9) advances to next Tuesday’s Class 3A Sycamore Sectional semifinal against the winner of Sycamore and Belvidere. Those two squads will play each other in the Belvidere Regional final on Friday night.
Schueler (14 points) had made her prior two free throws before missing two straight, the second which Brown ran down. The Knights made 16-of-22 free throws overall while Prairie Ridge was limited to a 1-of-6 night.
“Obviously that’s a time I need to make the free throws, and I missed them,” Schueler said. “But luckily we’ve been working a lot in practice on rebounding and a lot of stuff like that and Kendra was able to fight and get that board and I was able to make the next ones (free throws). I know my coaches have confidence in me and told me to get the ball again. ‘You’re going to knock the next ones down,’ and it worked out.”
Kaneland coach Brian Claesson, who was also the recipient of his first regional title, certainly appreciated Brown’s rebounding effort.
“That just goes to show the type of player she is,” he said. “She’s averaging close to 15 points a game. They were focusing on her. Their whole zone was on her. So that’s just a winner making a play, which we needed. It was a huge play.”
Prairie Ridge (17-13) fell behind 30-20 in the opening minute of the fourth quarter after Kaneland senior Berlyn Ruh (6 points, 4 rebounds) made a pair of free throws.
The Wolves answered with a couple of baskets inside from senior Addison Meyer (21 points, 10 rebounds) and then a pass from senior Grace Wolf to sophomore Zoe Nanos pulled them right back to 30-26 with 6:12 still to play.
“I’m just super proud of our girls. Our kids just play so hard,” Prairie Ridge coach Tim Taege said. “They play so hard and they’ve shown a tremendous amount of growth.”
Taege’s scoop near the hoop pulled the Wolves to within 41-37, but Brown and Schueler buried four straight free throws to close out the game for the Knights.
“It was definitely a game worrying about focusing on doing the little things,” Schueler said. “We knew they had a solid defense. We knew we had to take care of the ball on offense and we needed to make sure we were doing all the little things on defense like communicating and switching. No. 25 (Meyer) was a really good player and the environment was so fun, especially being able to win it on our home court (that) helped us a lot, too.”