Girls basketball: Rolling Meadows’ remarkable run continues with win over Fremd for sectional championship
Talk about a magical run.
Rolling Meadows lost its previous games to the two teams it faced in the Schaumburg Class 4A sectional by a combined 53 points.
Yet what happens in the Mustangs' two biggest games of the season?
They stunned top-seeded Prospect 55-41 in the semifinal on Tuesday and came back on Thursday night to stop No. 3 Fremd 49-42 after losing 62-32 to the Vikings just six weeks ago in Rolling Meadows.
The No. 5 seeded Mustangs, who were fourth in the Mid-Suburban East with a 3-7 record (two losses to Fremd), blitzed the Vikings early by taking a 12-0 lead in the first five minutes and never looked back, leading by as many as 16 points in the first half.
The closest Fremd got in the first half was 22-15.
Meadows opened the second half with an 8-0 run. Back-to-back 3-pointers from Lizzy Andriano and Abby Ramel, who had a game-high 23 points, made it 30-15 and Fremd never got closer than 46-40 with 50.2 seconds left in the game.
"I am so excited," said senior point guard Lizzy Andriano who had 8 points with 5 rebounds and 3 assists. "We haven’t done this in 12 years. We are playing our best basketball here at the end of the season just when we should be. It's so fun to win and so fun to be in this position."
The Mustangs (22-10) find themselves in a supersectional for the first time since coach Ryan Kirkorsky led the 2013 and 2014 teams to back-to-back second-place finishes in the Class 4A state tourney.
They will face Carmel (25-9) at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Dundee-Crown High School in Carpentersville.
"This feels awesome," Ramel said. "We knew we were good but didn't know how far we'd get. We knew we had to come out strong, really hustle and play with grit. I'm so proud of everyone."
The grit was there all through the game. Junior Anna Andriano (2 points) showed it when she escaped three defenders near midcourt to shake free and deliver a strike to Ramel, who was waiting under the basket to convert the layup for a key bucket that made it 42-32 with 4:09 left in the game.
KIrkorsky summed it up well.
"We told our kids we needed to be playing our best basketball at the end of the season," said Kirkorsky. "And they did. We talked to them about how there is so much adversity during the regular season. And how you need to come together and play as a team with different people stepping up on different nights and they really took ownership of that."
Senior Dalia Grandberry finished with another double-double (10 points, 10 rebounds).
""It was definitely studying a lot of film and also knowing that we needed to start every quarter with fire," said the Eastern Illinois recruit. "We couldn't afford a slow start at any time. We needed to be the aggressor."'
Irish Jordan had a big 17-footer that gave RM a 16-3 lead after one quarter while Nell Osterhues (4 points) followed with a clutch 3-pointer to start the second quarter for a 19-3 cushion.
"I was super proud of how when we got down, we fought and fought and fought," said Fremd first-year coach Jim Weaver. "We just couldn't get our hands on a loose ball. We'd trap and get what we wanted out of it but we were trying to play catch-up and it seemed like every time we had an opportunity to get a loose ball we didn't come up with it. It was just Rolling Meadows' night."
Senior Lucy Kim (team-high 18 points) scored Fremd's first 8 points. Her first 3-pointer made it 14-3 with 1:25 left in the opening quarter.
Her second 3-pointer followed two minutes into the second quarter and her strong driving layup got Fremd within 22-8 with 4:17 left to half.
Junior Gracie Todd added 16 points for Fremd followed by senior Greta Thompson (7).
"I don't know what people expected but we were 26-7 and obviously we graduated some really good players," Weaver added. "This group wanted to set its own path. They were sectional finalists. I couldn't be prouder of the season they had and how they went about doing what they needed to do. They did everything we asked of them."
Kirkorsky's club had also lost to Fremd, 52-46, on Dec 5.
"Fremd is awesome," Kirkorsky said. "Even down to the end you never feel comfortable against them. They have so many great players and it's such a great program.
"And we are extremely proud of our kids. We have four seniors (Ramel, Lizzy Andriano, Grandberry and Maggie Schoessling) and they make up one of the best senior classes I've had in terms of players and people. They've really taken the lead and made it easy for the coaching staff. We always talked about the sum as being all the parts and I think we've demonstrated that in the playoffs on a nightly basis."