St. Edward 68, Aurora Christian 46
PLANO -- It's difficult for any one player to take over a girls regional basketball game.
But that's exactly what St. Edward's Katie Yohn did Thursday night in Plano.
Yohn scored 30 points, pulled down 9 rebounds, and keyed a full court defense that paid off in a big way as the Green Wave rolled to a 68-46 win over Aurora Christian in its opening game of the postseason.
No. 5 seed St. Edward, which advanced to the Class A Elite Eight last year, will play top seed Driscoll for the Class 2A Plano regional championship at 8 p.m. Saturday. Driscoll (21-5) beat Lisle 54-39 Thursday and owns two wins over St. Edward this season.
"In the regional, you lose and you're out," Yohn said. "We didn't want to see the season end yet, so we gave it our all tonight."
The junior scored at least 6 points in each quarter, and though the Eagles made adjustments designed to keep the ball out of her hands, Yohn managed to be a constant factor at both ends of the floor.
"We tried to keep Katie Yohn from scoring, but she's a great player, the real deal," Aurora Christian coach Dan Stone said.
St. Edward got out to a 9-2 lead, but Aurora Christian quickly closed that gap. With 46 seconds left in the opening quarter, Lauren Heck dropped in a runner, giving the Eagles their first lead.
"We got off to a good start, but couldn't keep it going," Stone said. "We stopped attacking and started chucking threes and those weren't going down."
The game was tied 15-15 after one quarter, but Yohn led the Green Wave on a 9-0 run and by the time Stone called time out with 5 minutes left in the half his Eagles were looking up at a 23-15 deficit.
"We put pressure on the ball like we wanted to," St. Edward coach Michelle Dawson said. "Some of it was figuring out who they go to and what we wanted to do to counter that."
St. Edward maintained a 30-23 lead at the break, and wasted no time building on it in the third quarter. Senior Celeste Von Ahnen went to work in the low post, shutting down Aurora Christian's second shot opportunities, while creating scoring chances for herself at the other end.
"They changed up their defense in the second half, and that opened up some more shots for me," said Von Ahnen, who scored 18 points.
After blowing the game open by outscoring the Eagles 20-6 in the third quarter, the Green Wave (12-11) refused to let up, and never took it easy on defense, or on the boards.
They'll need that same intensity when they battle a familiar opponent in the regional championship game.
"Staying sharp for all four quarters, like we did tonight, will be key for us when we play Driscoll Saturday night," Dawson said.
Heck led the Eagles (14-14) with 12 points, Rachel Mertens scored 9, as did Casey Smar off a trio of 3s.