Dundee-Crown ousts Elgin

In the IHSA state basketball playoffs, every opponent is dangerous - even one with 3 regular-season wins.

That's why the Dundee-Crown girls basketball team was very wary of Elgin, its first-round draw Tuesday in the Class 4A Streamwood regional. Elgin had a hard-luck 2015-16 campaign, but with playmakers like 5-foot-7 senior guard Lakiya Harvey, anything was possible.

So there was just one solution. Don't let the Maroons become dangerous.

And that's what D-C did, starting the contest with an 11-0 run en route to a 70-29 victory. The Chargers also put together spurts of 10-1 in the second quarter and 13-2 in the third to advance to face Grant at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Streamwood in the regional semifinal. Elgin, meanwhile, finished its season at 3-24.

"We've had a couple rough games lately and we knew that everyone comes out hard on regionals, so we knew it had to be all or nothing," said D-C senior guard Melissa Barker.

How dominating was Dundee-Crown Tuesday? All 9 players that made it on the floor scored, led by junior forward Allison Michalski's 18 points and Barker's 13. Junior guard Paige Gieseke chipped in 10.

Michalski and Barker keyed the game's opening run. The Chargers were already up 6-0 when Barker canned a 3-pointer from the right arc with 5:03 left in the period. Seven seconds later, Michalski dropped in a layup off her own miss to give D-C an 11-0 lead, forcing Elgin coach Dr. Nick Bumbales to call a timeout.

"I thought we had some breakdowns defensively and they took advantage of it," Bumbales said. "They were aggressive going to the basket. They took advantage of some of the weaknesses we had."

It was more of the same in the second quarter, as Barker hit a slick layup over her left shoulder while driving the right baseline at 4:37, while Michalski contributed a floating jumper from the free-throw line at 4:37.

"Everyone had to be a scorer, we talked about that - everyone's got to have a scoring mentality," said D-C coach Sarah Miller, whose squad improved to 13-17. "When we picked up the tempo of the game a little bit, I felt we used our speed to our advantage and started to work our offense a little more and got really good looks."

Dundee-Crown's tough man-to-man defense held Harvey to just 7 points, all in the first quarter, and forced the Maroons into 26 turnovers. The Chargers also outrebounded Elgin 25-20, led by sophomore center Madilyn's Tripp's 8 boards.