Burlington Central blows out Plano

Elana Wells' postseason opener for the Burlington Central girls basketball team consisted of beginning the game with back-to-back all-net 3-pointers.

It proved to be a portent of the most unfortunate kind for the host Reapers Wednesday night.

Less than six minutes into the Class 3A Plano regional semifinal, Central had as many made 3-pointers - five - as the Reapers had points.

Burlington Central, the No. 3 seed of the Rochelle subsectional, blitzed fifth-seeded and bad-luck Plano 67-23 to cruise into the championship game Thursday night.

The Rockets (22-7) will face second-seeded Glenbard South, which survived No. 6 Aurora Central Catholic 34-21 in the first semifinal.

Plano, which began the season by winning 16 of its first 20 games, finished 19-12 after losing star guard Makenzie Vann to an ACL tear.

Reili Gardner was 3 points away from Burlington Central having its entire starting five in double digits.

Lily Moretti had four of the Rockets' nine 3-pointers in matching the game-high 14-point performance of Central's Zoey Kollhoff.

"The game was awesome," Moretti said of the Rockets' 22-5 blitz to usher in the contest. "We start the game with a 3 or layup, we are playing our best."

Throughout the first and third quarters, Kollhoff raced to the other end off of expected Plano misses from the field.

The Kollhoff wisdom paid dividends more times than naught with uncontested lay-ins at the other end.

"We blitzed them from the beginning," Burlington Central coach Mark Smith said. "I liked our approach."

With a commanding 34-11 lead at halftime, Central made the only conjecture of the second the final score.

Six different players combined for 25 points for the Rockets in the third.

Wells and Kathryn Schmidt had 12 points each for Burlington Central.

Gardner and Avery Andersen had circus-like 3-point plays on consecutive possessions to firmly implant the game-long Central dominance.

"We lost our leading scorer (Vann), the motor to our whole team," Plano coach Dave Lay said. "We didn't contest their 3-point shooters and didn't have many good offensive looks. That's not a good combination."

"The 3s are really key for (our offense)," said Central reserve guard Gracie Ozburn. "It's like a domino effect."

Delani Kosner scored 9 points for Aurora Central Catholic (15-16) in the opening regional semifinal Wednesday.