Girls basketball: St. Edward goes cold in Class 1A state semifinal loss
St. Edward made its return to the girls basketball state tournament Thursday at CEFCU Arena in Normal, facing an opponent that had never been.
Green Wave senior Amelia Davis scored the first basket of the game on a perfect pass from Jordin Sauls. Unfortunately for St. Edward, that turned out to be its only lead.
Turnovers and poor shooting plagued St. Edward all day, and Pecatonica, making its first appearance at state in any sport, capitalized for a 54-41victory in the Class 1A state semifinals.
Pecatonica (31-6) will play Carrollton (30-7) for the 1A state championship Saturday.
St. Edward (26-11) faces Cissna Park (30-6), who lost to Carrollton 55-39 in Thursday's first semifinal, for third place at 9:30 a.m. Friday.
"I think if we would have calmed down a little bit and maybe slowed down a little bit, it might have been a little easier for us," said St. Edward sophomore Savannah Lynch. "But they’re a great team, they played great defense and they just really flustered us."
Pecatonica senior Elaina Rager was a thorn in St. Edward's side all game, making five of her six 3-point attempts while scoring a game-high 25 points.
" I think it just took us a little while in the first half to get settled," St. Edward coach Michelle Dawson said. "Some of it was just too many turnovers, and Rager got those couple of 3s on us in the second quarter. But that was, in my opinion, really the difference."
The Green Wave struggled early taking care of the ball, turning it over six times in the first four minutes to fall behind 9-3. They started to settle down as the quarter went on, getting a lift from their bench to pull within 13-9 after one.
Lynch, St. Edward's leading scorer at 20.4 ppg, missed her first five shots while playing with a brace on her non-shooting hand. She got on the board with a free throw midway through the second quarter as St. Edward pulled within 17-15, but Rager drilled back-to-back 3s to help Pecatonica take a 25-18 halftime lead.
The turnovers continued in the third quarter for both teams, and Pecatonica held that same 7-point advantage, 32-25, going to the fourth.
St. Edward made a couple mini-runs late. Two free throws by Layne Dawson cut the gap to 34-29 with 5:50 left.
Another Reger 3 from the corner made it 40-30 before Soulis scored inside to pull within 41-34 at 3:34. Two straight St. Edward turnovers helped the Indians push the lead back to 46-34.
Lynch scored seven straight points as St. Edward made a final charge within 48-41 with 1:04 left. But that turned out to be St. Edward's final points as Pecatonica iced the game at the free-throw line.
St. Edward shot 31.8% from the field (14 for 44), 61.1% at the free-throw line and made just 2 of 17 from 3-point range while turning the ball over 27 times.
"Gotta hand it to their defense, they kept doing a good job of trying to push us out instead of being able to get into the normal flow of our offense and being able to really attack from the inside," Dawson said.
Dawson, an alum and St. Edward's coach since the 2004-05 season with a 324-275 record, also coached the Wave to a third-place finish at state in 2017. St. Edward won state in 1985 under Ken Mattini, took third in 1986, second in 1988 and fourth in 1991.
Dawson reflected on getting back to state with daughters Taylor and Layne on the team.
"It is (special), and not just Taylor and Layne, but all of these guys, I’ve known most of them since third or fourth grade, whether it’s through rec center ball that we’ve played or an AAU team many of them were on in our feeder program," she said.
Seniors Elizabeth Leadley and Davis agreed.
"I’m just so grateful that this is the way I get to go out, and I’m just trying to soak up every moment here and have one last really fun game with everyone," Leadley said.
"I’ve been playing with most of these girls for a really long time," Davis said. "It means a lot that we made it this far, and I’m just really excited to finish out the season with the people I love."
Lynch led St. Edward with 17 points and 7 rebounds. Sauls added 8 points, and Maggie Jarzemsky, who returned this season from an ACL injury, provided a spark off the bench with 5 points, 6 rebounds and 2 steals.
"This was always our end goal, to make it to state, and we did that," Jarzemsky said. "Just being able to go down onto the floor with one of my teammates was one of my goals since I was younger, watching the 2017 team."
– Mason Schweizer from Shaw Local News Network contributed