Girls basketball: Hartman reaches 1,000 points in Carmel’s win over Saint Viator

Carmel Catholic senior guard Josie Hartman needed to score 10 points to reach 1,000 career points in a home game against Saint Viator on Wednesday night.

She needed only a little more than 11 minutes to net 11 points in the Corsairs’ 43-33 East Suburban Catholic Conference girls basketball victory on Senior Night no less.

Her teammates had made at least three posters to commemorate the milestone before the tipoff.

“I saw them,” a smiling Hartman said of the colorful posters, “and thought, ‘Shoot, I had better get it (the “grand” mark).

The 5-foot-9 got it at the 4:35 mark of the second quarter, off an assist from junior guard Maliyah Mays, who had secured an offensive rebound only moments earlier. Freshman teammate Liv Johnson (7 points, 18 rebounds, including 8 boards in the final quarter) had tallied the first 2 points of the game in Mundelein.

Hartman?

All she did was strike for the Corsairs’ next 11 points, with the 10th and 11th giving the hosts a 13-6 lead.

She finished with a game-high 21 points.

“I could not have done this without my teammates and coaches,” said Hartman, who’s as humble of a student-athlete as she is vital to her team’s success.

Hartman became the sixth Corsair in program history to amass 1,000 career points — and the first Carmel three-sport athlete to do so. An all-state flag football quarterback last fall, she also plays soccer in the spring.

But her most important points Wednesday night came after Saint Viator — which trailed 19-11 at halftime and 33-17 after three quarters — scored the first 7 points of the final frame (capped by a trey from junior Bella Gounaris) to cut Carmel’s advantage to 33-24 at the 6:01 mark.

Hartman hit a field goal 12 seconds after a Carmel timeout to halt the visitors’ momentum and then made 4 free throws to complete her scoring.

“Great athlete and incredibly intelligent,” Corsairs coach Ben Berg, who also coaches flag football, said after his club improved to 19-8 overall and 7-3 in the rugged ESCC.

Hartman plans to go out for club flag football, probably at the University of Georgia, she noted after placing her posters on the ground to field postgame questions.

Viator’s Lions (16-13, 2-9) trailed only 9-6 after 8 minutes. Gounaris poured in 9 of her team-high 11 points after the break. Sophomore teammate Ava Garcia scored 9 to go with 6 boards, and Lions senior Gabriella Scaravalle came down with 7 rebounds.

“I’m proud of our effort,” said Saint Viator coach and Schaumburg graduate Kyle Braheny, whose squad lost 55-27 in the teams’ first meeting on Jan. 10, after trailing by 5 points at the half. “We battled the whole game. We didn’t back down, went toe-to-toe with a very good team in the strongest conference in the state.

“A game like this,” he added, “is such good preparation for the state playoffs.”

Carmel junior Anna Chilcutt and Saint Viator sophomore Evelyn Hill each scored 6 points via 3-pointers.