Schaumburg tips St. Charles E.
The last couple minutes of the game went a whole lot better than the first few minutes for Alyssa Saklak and her Schaumburg teammates Tuesday night.
Saklak, who sat out the majority of the first quarter with a bloody nose after taking an inadvertent elbow to the face, wound up hitting the go-ahead, left-handed scoop layup with 1:14 remaining to help lift the Saxons (15-13) to a 51-45, come-from-behind victory over St. Charles East in Class 4A girls basketball regional semifinal action in Bartlett.
Trailing 45-42 with 1:58 left, Schaumburg finished the game on a 9-0 run that included 6-of-8 free-throw shooting. Saklak, a 5-10 senior forward, had 11 points, 9 rebounds and a pair of blocked shots for the Saxons.
“I was real concerned early on that she’d be able to come back into the game but she did,” Schaumburg coach Ashley Berggren said of Saklak.
Sophomore Madison Laramie, who had only taken 2 shots prior to entering the game in the final minute, calmly sank a pair of free throws for her only points of the game with 38.7 seconds left, giving the Saxons a 48-45 advantage.
“Bringing in Madison Laramie right there at the end to knock down those two key free throws was huge,” said Berggren. “She’s a very good free-throw shooter.”
Meanwhile, St. Charles East was unable to make free throws or execute its offense down the stretch. The Saints were 2-of-8 at the line in the fourth quarter, and wound up 6-of-14 for the game.
“That really hurt us at the end,” Saints coach Lori Drumtra said of her team’s foul shooting. “We missed a couple of 1-and-1s and that’s unusual. The people at the line were the people I’d want at the line. I want Amanda (Hilton) at the line, I want Morgan (Vyzral) at the line. It just wasn’t bouncing for them today.”
St. Charles East, which had split its 2 previous meetings with Schaumburg earlier in the season, led 14-10 after a quarter, 23-19 at halftime, and 39-37 after 3 periods before being outscored 14-6 over the final 8 minutes.
“We didn’t finish,” said Drumtra. “We had some mental lapses at the end and were a little bit careless with the ball.”
Amanda Kelly, who burned the Saints for 26 points during Schaumburg’s 68-42 win over St. Charles East on Dec. 27 at the Wheaton North tournament, led the Saxons with 16 points.
This time, Schaumburg’s comeback included banked-in 3-pointers from Riley Williams and Saklak.
“We struggled to put the ball in the basket but we found a way to win,” said Berggren, whose team will face top-seeded Bartlett (26-1) Thursday night. “It’s good that we got the poor shooting out of the way here tonight because that’s not going to cut it against Bartlett.”
Paige Jordan and Hilton had 14 and 12 points, respectively, for the Saints, who closed out their season at 14-13.
“Whenever the season ended, I wanted it to end where we played hard, were competitive down to the wire, and played as a team,” said Drumtra. “I thought we did that.”
With a final glance at the scorebook after the game, Drumtra knew what the main difference in the outcome was on this night.
“I just see a lot of open circles,” she said.