Schmit: Girls basketball teams ready to shock the state

Three area girls basketball teams headed to central Illinois with hopes of winning an IHSA title this weekend.

Few outside their respective communities expect it to happen.

Through the many decades we’ve sent girls basketball teams to Redbird Arena in Normal, I can’t remember a more interesting group of local underdogs vying for championships.

Three teams. Three different classes. Three long shots.

St. Edward (Class 2A), St. Viator (3A) and Rolling Meadows (4A) all stunned their way to supersectional victories on Monday to put themselves in the state semifinals. In doing so they earned the viewpoint of, why not us?

They’ve each got the most losses among the four semifinalists in their class. In fact, St. Edward and Rolling Meadows have more losses than the other three teams combined. St. Viator’s 14 defeats are just two fewer than the rest of the 3A field.

All three teams take nothing for granted in a wild weekend where the opportunity is golden. Anything’s possible, right?

Rolling Meadows stormed through the Schaumburg sectional as the five seed, knocking off the fourth, first and third seeds. Then came Carmel, a second seed, in the supersectional.

Done.

Next up? Oh, just Loyola Academy. All the Ramblers (33-2) have done is win three state titles, and last year they finished fourth in 4A. No one in the playoffs has come within 16 points of them, and they haven’t lost in 2026.

Rolling Meadows (22-10), which finished second in the state in 2013 and 2014, counters with do-it-all senior forward Abby Ramel, who averages 16.2 points and 8 rebounds. Six-foot-four Eastern Illinois commit Dalia Grandberry is a double-double threat, while Nellie Osterhues averages 2.5 3-pointers a game.

Is it enough to upset Loyola? If it is, another Goliath awaits from the other semifinal in Nazareth Academy or Belleville East. In the supersectional, Nazareth beat one of the area’s top teams in Waubonsie Valley, which beat Benet (another of our top teams) in the sectional final.

It’s no easier in 3A for St. Viator, a three seed from the Grayslake Central sectional that knocked off No. 2 Wauconda before beating a pair of other upset-minded squads from Grayslake Central and Geneva.

The Lions (22-14) never won a supersectional before this season, but in the semifinals they face a Washington (33-2) team that finished third in the state last year. Guard Avery Tibbs, averaging 20.5 points, is the program’s all-time leading scorer.

St. Viator relies on balance. Bella Gounaris and Ava Garcia, who had 10 points and 10 rebounds in the supersectional, average more than 11 points apiece. Their teammates pitch in plenty.

Finally, we’ve got St. Edward (27-8) — the one team among the area’s three semifinalists with experience at Redbird Arena. The Green Wave took fourth in 1A last year, and this season it survived the 2A bracket to seal its seventh state trophy.

The Green Wave and junior guard Savannah Lynch, averaging 20.9 points, started the tourney early in Normal with a Thursday semifinal game against a Byron team that beat St. Edward 57-41 in the regular-season finale.

A weekend for local underdogs starts off fittingly with a matchup like that.