Aurora Central claims 2nd straight regional

While Mark Fitzgerald will be remembered at Aurora Central for turning around the girls basketball program, turns out the Chargers coach also knows how to fire up a crowd.

As he took his turn cutting down the net following Aurora Central’s 46-36 victory over Plano Thursday night in the Class 2A Plano regional championship game, Fitzgerald turned to the crowd and roared, “Who are we?”

“ACC!” yelled back the crowd.

“Who are we?”

“ACC!”

“Who are we?”

“ACC!”

At that point Fitzgerald climbed down the ladder and exchanged some more hugs and high-fives. Aurora Central had never experienced a regional championship before last year — now the Chargers have two in a row to go with a school-record 22 wins.

“This is a big accomplishment for our school to do two in a row like this and I’m very proud of all these kids,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s because of these kids. They didn’t want to be denied.”

A trio of three year-starters Ashley Wilk, Katilyn Rosa and Jackie Cardona have been in the center of the program’s rise while a pair of transfers Tess Alderman (Kaneland) and Lisa Rodriguez (Aurora Christian) round out a starting lineup that scored all but 2 of the team’s points Thursday.

“I’m excited, I’ve never won a regional,” Alderman said. “I don’t even know what to say. I’m glad I won it with these girls. These girls are like my family. I didn’t feel like a transfer this year. I felt like I’ve been here with these girls the whole time.”

The Chargers (22-6) advance to the Chicago Christian sectional at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. They will play a Chicago school, the winner of Friday’s Hope/CICS Ellison matchup.

Wilk led the way with 12 points and 11 rebounds, Cardona added 10 points and Alderman and Rosa both scored 9.

“It’s really special,” Wilk said. “It’s a big deal but we want more now.”

Ice cold doesn’t begin to describe the first half for both teams. Aurora Central hit just 1 of 13 shots in the first quarter and was outrebounded 19-9 — yet led 5-4 as Plano (16-15) also shot 1 for 13.

Rosa’s short jumper on a feed from Rodriguez midway through the first quarter was it for the Chargers offense.

The second quarter didn’t start much better. Not until Alderman swished a baseline jumper with 2:40 left in the half did the Chargers make their second field goal.

Aurora Central trailed 15-9 at that point — which turned out to be Plano’s biggest lead of the game — but chipped to within 17-15 at halftime led by 4 points from Wilk.

“Definitely nerves,” Alderman said of the sluggish first half. “I think we choked early. We weren’t playing as a team. As coach put it we were playing as NBA players and that’s not who we are. We needed to start playing as team players.”

Fitzgerald gave the credit to Plano and the Reapers’ 6-foot-3 sophomore center Clarissa Martinez.

“Plano played a fantastic game,” Fitzgerald said. “We had a very difficult job containing Martinez. It took a little while for our girls to take over.

“The nerves were last night (against Joliet Catholic). They did a good job on us. We had to find our mo-jo and we finally got it going.”

Rodriguez got the Chargers rolling early in the third quarter with a pair of jumpers. Wilk hit two free throws to put the Chargers ahead to stay at 21-19.

Plano kept the game tight until midway through the fourth quarter. Six straight points from Martinez to end the third quarter brought the Reapers within 29-28, then she scored again early in the fourth on her way to a monster line of 17 points, 18 rebounds and 7 blocked shots.

“It was hard,” Alderman said. “She is there, you can’t move her, you can’t get around her. She is a phenomenal shot-blocker. You just had to look for an opportunity when she wasn’t standing there and take it.”

“My confidence level has been high,” said Robinson, who also had 14 rebounds and 10 blocked shots in an upset win over Aurora Christian on Wednesday. “I think our offense was a little slow. We tried to keep it up but it didn’t turn out for us.”

The Chargers began widening their lead at the free-throw line. Four straight from Wilk and Cardona made it 36-31, the start of 11-for-16 shooting from the line in the final quarter. Alderman’s fastbreak lay-in with 1:21 to go gave the Chargers their first double-digit lead of the night.

Moments later they were all taking turns cutting down the net and thinking about perhaps more history to come.

“We have work to do if we want to have success at the next level,” Fitzgerald said, “but I’m going to enjoy this one tonight.”