Meadows wins a cliffhanger at Stevenson
Stevenson had its Batman on Monday night.
But Rolling Meadows’ girls basketball team had too much Bam!
Too much Pow!
And way too much Glasgow!
As in sophomore guard/forward Alexis Glasgow.
The 5-foot-11 superhero struck for a career-high 21 points in RM’s season-opening 68-63 double-overtime thriller at Stevenson.
“It feels like March, doesn’t it?” said Mustangs coach Todd Hatfield, whose club overcame a game-high 23 points from Stevenson senior Katie Batman.
“What a game, what an atmosphere,” he added. “We beat a great coach (Tom Dineen) and a great program tonight. Tom wanted to play us before this year. But I’d been ducking him for three years, because I didn’t think we were ready to compete with his teams.”
Hatfield agreed to add Stevenson to RM’s schedule last spring.
His team was ready Monday night.
Meadows (1-0) led 18-17 after one quarter and 28-26 at the half. Three Mustangs — Glasgow, sophomore sharpshooter Jenny Vliet (13 points, 5 steals) and sophomore guard Jackie Kemph (10 points) — each tallied 6 points before the break.
The Patriots (1-0), a 21-win team last winter, went up 38-36 at 2:52 of the third quarter, on a bucket by freshman reserve Taylor Buford. But, seven seconds later, Mustangs senior guard/forward Ann Marie Lynch answered with a basket to knot it again.
Stevenson junior guard Kari Moffat (6 points, 3 steals) put the hosts up by 2 shortly thereafter.
RM’s response?
Another quick one. Glasgow netted a trey at 2:31.
“We like it when we score as the PA announcer is still saying the name of the player who had just scored for the other team,” Hatfield said.
Added Glasgow: “We push. That’s our offense. We push the whole time.”
Batman nearly helped Stevenson pull it out from the free-throw line. Her 4 freebies, in the final 50.3 seconds of the first OT, capped the extra session. A Glasgow layup, after 2 free throws from Kemph and 2 more from senior guard Amanda Gunn, had given the visitors a 61-57 lead at 2:45.
“Katie,” Dineen said, “gave us life after knocking down those free throws. We battled, didn’t give up. But we got beat by a very good team tonight. We didn’t play very good transition defense, and we didn’t pass well.
“Meadows,” he added, “capitalized on every bad pass. Good teams do that.”
Batman opened the second OT with her final field goal, giving the Pats a 63-61 edge.
Stevenson got blanked the rest of the way.
Glasgow authored 3 of RM’s final 5 points.
“We haven’t had a clutch win like this in a while,” said Glasgow, who worked extensively on her shooting last summer while playing for Midwest Elite, a Deerfield-based AAU team.
“We played hard, ran our stuff.”
She had a tough time recalling her best game, offensively, in the 2010-11 season.
“Like, 11 points … maybe,” she said.
Glasgow (2 3-pointers, 7 rebounds, 5 steals) scored 14 points in regulation and 7 in the OTs Monday night.
Twelve of Vliet’s 13 points came from 3-point land; Gunn put in 7 of her 10 points after regulation; and Lynch finished with 9 points and 8 boards.
Pats junior Alex Elzinga (5 boards) scored 14 points, 6 in each of the first and third quarters. Senior teammate Olivia Whalen poured in 9 of her 13 points in the first half and came down with 8 rebounds.
“We wanted a game like this, just like this,” said Hatield. “We want to be ready for our games in the (Mid-Suburban League) East.”
Dineen coached for years in the MSL East, at Buffalo Grove, before taking the job at Stevenson two winters ago.
He was thankful Monday night, even after a tough loss.
“I’d rather have a game like this in an opener,” Dineen said. “Nobody wants to start the season with a blowout.”