Marshall rings up record eighth state crown
NORMAL -- To legendary Chicago Marshall girls basketball coach Dorothy Gaters, a state championship is a state championship.
Gaters' Marshall squad opened up a 22-18 lead at halftime, withstood a Freeport run in the third quarter, then closed out its record eighth Illinois girls basketball state championship on Saturday, defeating Freeport 58-47 in the inaugural IHSA Class 3A title game at Illinois State University's Redbird Arena.
Fifth-ranked Montini beat No. 2 Quincy Notre Dame 50-35 to capture third place.
"It doesn't matter to me," Gaters said of winning a state title in the first year of four classes in Illinois high school basketball. "(The medal) is just like everyone else's."
It was the 11th appearance in a state championship game for third-ranked Marshall under Gaters, the winningest high school basketball coach in Illinois history. Marshall last won state in 1999.
Marshall (26-7) was paced by senior Sarah Rogers with 18 points and 11 rebounds. Adrienne GodBold and Tatiana Walker each added 13 points.
GodBold tied Quincy Notre Dame's Karlee Gengenbacher for most points in the two-game tournament with 38.
"This is definitely a special win for us," said Rogers, a UMass recruit. "We've been thinking about this for a long time. We practiced hard and we played hard."
No. 8 Freeport (30-5), which had a 17-game winning streak snapped, opened the second half on a 10-0 run to take a 28-24 lead midway through the third quarter but the Commandos stormed back with a 10-0 run of their own and never trailed again. Marshall's defense created 26 turnovers and the Commandos scored 27 points off those Lady Pretzel miscues.
Holding a slim 36-34 lead after Freeport's Courtney Shiffer scored with 52 seconds left in the third quarter, Marshall went on a 9-0 run to go ahead 45-34 on a Rogers jumper with 6:33 left in the game.
"It was starting to slip right there and we couldn't get it back," said Freeport coach Ryan Pierce. "(Marshall) just gets to the basket so fast."
Gaters agreed that was the final turning point in the 881st win of her storied career.
"That was huge," she said. "We wanted to get a little separation and confidence and put our opponent in a hole."
Freeport was playing for its first state championship. The Lady Pretzels finished third at state in 1994 and 1995.
Junior Suporia Dickens led Freeport with 15 points and 9 rebounds.
Montini 50, Quincy ND 35: The Montini girls basketball found its shooting touch in time to make history.
The Broncos won their first game at state in the program's fourth trip to Redbird Arena, beating Quincy Notre Dame 50-35 in the Class 3A third-place contest.
A day after suffering through 21 percent shooting from the field in its semifinal loss to Freeport, Montini (28-6) shot 52 percent against Notre Dame's man defense to take home the program's first state trophy.
"I think we could have beaten the (Freeport) Pretzels if we played like that yesterday," said Montini sophomore center Michala Johnson, who posted game highs of 16 points and 10 rebounds, "but everyone has their bad games and their good games."
This definitely fell in the latter category for the Broncos.
"It was amazing," said Montini senior guard Cootie Leeberg. "If those (shots) would have dropped yesterday, it would have been a different game, but it felt really good to finally seem 'em fall.
"Only two teams get to end their season on a win. We're one of 'em so that's just so cool. Even if its third. I mean third's better than fourth."
Johnson scored the game's first bucket and her team's first 6 points as Montini jumped ahead 8-3.
The Broncos had three players combine for four 3-pointers in the second quarter. Alison Seberger buried one of her three 3-pointers near the end of the half to send them into intermission with a 25-18 lead.
"Obviously we wanted to finish on a strong note, but give Montini a lot of credit," said Raiders coach Eric Orne. "Obviously they had some good players and they were able to knock down some shots early on and get some distance and start to make us press a little more."
Up 39-33 in the fourth quarter, the Broncos pulled away with an 11-0 run.
Karlee Gengenbacher's 13 points paced Notre Dame (32-2). The Raiders shot 1-for-16 from 3-point territory, while Montini went 5-for-10.
-- Dave Miller