Wheeling's late rally stuns Hersey in MSL East showdown

The two-time defending Mid-Suburban League girls basketball champs pulled off the great escape Friday night at the Ken Carter Gymnasium in Arlington Heights.

Trailing Hersey by 9 points with 1:55 left, Wheeling's Wildcats roared back with a trapping press and closed the game with a 12-0 run for the 51-48 victory in a battle of MSL East powers.

"It's not over until the clock strikes zero," said Wildcats senior Stephanie Kuzmanic (13 points, 5 rebounds), who kept persuading her teammates as her team trailed by double digits for the most of the second half.

"Stephanie kept telling her teammates, 'we're still in it,'" said Wheeling coach Shelly Wiegel, whose club (20-3, 4-2) is tied with Hersey (14-6, 4-2) and Elk Grove (18-3, 4-2) for first in the MSL East. "Stephanie kept believing and that got everyone believing."

The big two-minute drill Wheeling used to close the game included 4 turnovers by Hersey.

The rally started with Janelle Cannon's driving 10-footer that made it 48-41 at 1:52, followed by Bianca Szafarowicz's steal and assist to Kuzmanic for a layup at 1:34.

Buckets by Cannon and Larissa Aguero (rebound layup) made it 48-47 with 55 seconds left.

Hersey missed 2 free throws and 2 shots with less than 40 seconds left. Cannon (19 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists) gave the Wildcats their first lead since late in the first quarter when she drove the baseline for a layup and 49-48 lead with 25 seconds remaining.

After another Hersey turnover, Szafarowicz made 1 of 2 free throws for a 50-48 lead with 10.3 seconds left.

Following a Hersey timeout, Szafarowicz (9 points, 7 rebounds, 4 steals) came up with her biggest steal of the game near the baseline. She was quickly fouled and made 1 of 2 free throws again with 6.8 seconds left.

Junior Megan Rogowski, who scored 16 of her game-high 21 points in the first half, had a 3-pointer hit off the backboard and rim before falling out at the buzzer.

"I thought it was going in," Cannon said of Rogowski's shot from left of the key. "I got real scared but when it fell off the rim then I got excited again."

"So far, our biggest win of the season," Szafarowicz said. "They shut us down the first time we played them (54-49 loss) so we had to come back this time. We knew we had to force more turnovers than them. We all had to step up and give 110 percent in the fourth quarter."

The Wildcats missed 6 free throws in the second half.

"We've got to shoot 100 free throws each in practice now," Wiegel said. "But the win is great. I'm so proud of how the girls finished. We always talk about our defense turning into our offense. But I don't know if we believed that until the end."

Hersey senior forwards Maddie Swan (10 points, 13 rebounds, 7 blocked shots) and Kathyrn Korff (8 points, 11 rebounds) helped Hersey limit the Wildcats to one shot on many possessions.

"We played well for 31/2 quarters," Swan said. "We just needed to finish. It was a great effort but Wheeling really picked it up at the end."

Julia Fredian, playing her first game in three weeks without practice, collected 7 points while Kari Tunney had 3 assists.

"Julia is pretty tough to get out there and do that," said Hersey coach Mary Fendley. "And our posts were great. Honestly, our defense was great the whole game. It was almost a repeat of our Prospect game (36-34 loss) where we were making turnovers at the end. We're just missing something in our passing at crunch time.

"There is not much I would do differently with our game planning and I wouldn't trade any of my kids for anything. We knew what we had to do and they gave everything they had."

Leah Malsom gave Wheeling a boost off the bench, scoring a key fourth-quarter bucket.

"I thought Leah did a nice job off the bench," Wiegel added. "Hersey played so well but we took advantage of some opportunities at the end and were able to pull it out."

A 3-pointer by Rogowski and free throw by Korff gave Hersey a halftime lead of 31-20, its biggest lead in the first 16 minutes.

"We came out a little flat," Wiegel added. "We talked about picking it up on defense and being more aggressive on offense. Thankfully, we got going in the fourth quarter.

"This keeps things interesting for us in the conference. Now at least we have control of our own destiny."