Smith scores 2,000th point in South Elgin win
Finally, the chase to 2,000 is over for South Elgin senior Becca Smith.
After missing three straight shots at the milestone basket, Smith cut through the Larkin defense and laid the basketball into the basket with 17 seconds left in the first half Wednesday night, becoming just the third girls basketball player in Fox Valley history to score 2,000 career points. She joins former Bartlett all-American Lindsay Schrader and former Elgin standout Leslie Schock in that elite group.
Smith finished with 21 points — she now has 2,002 for her career — as the Storm easily rolled by Larkin 77-41 in the first semifinal of the Class 4A South Elgin regional.
The top-seeded Storm (18-10) advances to a regional championship game for the first time in program history and will take on No. 2 seed Streamwood (15-13) at 7:30 p.m. Friday for the right to advance to next week’s McHenry sectional. Streamwood defeated Dundee-Crown 67-51 in Wednesday’s second semifinal.
“It’s a huge weight off my shoulders,” said Smith, the Loyola recruit who leads the area in scoring at just over 20 points per game and who also had 9 assists and 7 rebounds in the win. “Now I can just focus on the regional championship game and hopefully sectionals. I owe a ton of thanks to my teammates and my family. I’ve been reading in the paper about all these girls getting 1,000 points this year. It’s crazy how many points 2,000 is. It’s been a long journey and I’m excited and blessed.”
South Elgin coach Tim Prendergast, who has been coaching for the better part of 20 years, also acknowledged what a significant milestone 2,000 points is.
“You have to play four years and you have to stay healthy,” he said. “It’s a lot of points. Becca puts the ball in the basket.”
South Elgin as a team put the ball in the basket Wednesday like it hasn’t all season. The Storm had a 55-20 lead by halftime, hitting an uncanny 24 of 39 from the field in the first half, including 5 of 9 from 3-point range.
“We got off to a really good start and we shot lights out,” Prendergast said. “I know we’re capable of doing that and we’ve been shooting well but never to that degree. Our defense set the tone and we put the ball in the basket.
“I was worried about this game. There were some upsets (Tuesday) night, the whole Becca 2,000 thing ... there was a lot on us tonight. We responded.”
The Storm’s stifling trapping defense helped create 22 Larkin turnovers in the first half and the Royals (5-23) could only get off 16 shots in the first 16 minutes.
“They came out firing and turnovers definitely hurt us,” said Larkin coach Tissanie Simmons. “That kind of handed the game to them and put us in a deep hole. We didn’t transition as much as we wanted to today and they were hot. They came out firing and got it done.”
The big lead allowed Prendergast to rest his starters most of the second half and all 15 South Elgin players who saw playing time scored. Senior Lania Robinson added 10 points, hitting 2 3-pointers in the first quarter. Sophomore Kennede Miller had 6 points and 8 rebounds.
Senior Abby Alvarez and sophomore Tori Patterson led Larkin with 10 points each. Senior Jill Casebeer added 9.