Girls basketball: Gogola’s 26 pushes Lancers into regional final

A banner season for DeKalb’s girls basketball team was brought to a close Monday night by Allie Gogola and Lake Park.

Gogola poured in a game-high 26 points to lead the Lancers into Thursday’s Class 4A Willowbrook Regional championship with a 54-43 victory over the Barbs.

Lake Park (19-12), which has had a turnaround season of its own by nearly doubling its win total from a year ago despite no seniors on the roster, will take on top-seeded St. Charles East for the third time this year.

“I think we just really wanted it,” said Gogola, who added a team-high eight rebounds. “We got to the regional championship last year and we wanted to have that opportunity to fight for the title again.

“We put a really big focus on our defense this year and all of us have bought into that. Defense is a really good thing that you can control and was something as a team that we could improve on. Plus almost all of us played feeder ball together. We’ve been together since fourth or fifth grade and we are friends on and off the court. That definitely helps on the court. The fact we don’t have any seniors will help us next year, we can pick right up wherever we leave off.”

Behind 10 points from Gogola, the Lancers led 13-9 after the opening eight minutes and increased that margin to 28-23 by halftime. But DeKalb (20-11) began the second half with an 8-2 run, pulling in front 31-30 on putback by freshman Johnna Patrick, who scored 11 points before fouling out.

But Lake Park responded with an 11-3 spurt to seize control. The Barbs got to within 49-43 on a 3-pointer by Ella Medina with 2:23 remaining but came no closer.

“It was a great effort by these young ladies,” said DeKalb coach Brad Bjelk, whose team battled foul trouble throughout. “They worked hard and left it all on the floor. We executed the game plan pretty well. We wanted to make it tough on No. 13 (Gogola) and No. 14 (Maggie Frank), but 13 had a great night despite our efforts. We went into the half down but had a great start to that third quarter. They punched back and it was a true battle. We just ran out of time.”

The 20 wins are the most in quite some time for DeKalb, which had won four of its previous five games. Alicia Johnson topped the Barbs with 18 points and Brytasia Long, one of five seniors on the team, finished with four points, 10 rebounds and two blocks. Medina, another senior, had seven points.

Alex Kiefer chipped in with 12 points for the Lancers and Frank also checked into double figures with 11.

“In these games, they are played physical and they are played tough,” said Lake Park coach Bob Reibel. “Give DeKalb a ton of credit. They played hard and they played physically. We hadn’t seen that level of physicality and we play in a very tough league.”