Three cheers for Montini

NORMAL -- The Montini girls basketball team found its shooting touch in time to make history.

The Broncos won their first game at state in the program's fourth trip to Redbird Arena, beating Quincy Notre Dame 50-35 in the Class 3A third-place contest in a Saturday matinee.

A day after suffering through 21 percent shooting from the field in its semifinal loss to Freeport, Montini (28-6) shot 52 percent against Notre Dame's man defense to take home the program's first state trophy.

"I think we could have beaten the (Freeport) Pretzels if we played like that yesterday," said Montini sophomore center Michala Johnson, who posted game-highs of 16 points and 10 rebounds, "but everyone has their bad games and their good games."

This definitely fell in the latter category for the Broncos.

"It was amazing," Montini senior guard Cootie Leeberg said. "If those (shots) would have dropped yesterday it would have been a different game, but it felt really good to finally seem 'em fall.

"Only two teams get to end their season on a win. We're one of 'em, so that's just so cool. Even if it's third. I mean, third's better than fourth."

Johnson scored the game's first bucket and her team's first 6 points as Montini jumped ahead 8-3.

The Broncos had three players combine for four 3-pointers in the second quarter. Alison Seberger buried one of her three 3-pointers near the end of the half to send them into intermission with a 25-18 lead.

"Obviously, we wanted to finish on a strong note, but give Montini a lot of credit," Raiders coach Eric Orne said. "Obviously, they had some good players and they were able to knock down some shots early on and get some distance and start to make us press a little more."

Up 39-33 in the fourth quarter, the Broncos pulled away with an 11-0 run.

Karlee Gengenbacher's 13 points paced Notre Dame (32-2). The Raiders shot 1 of 16 from 3-point territory while Montini went 5 for 10.

For the young Broncos, their state run may be a preview of what's to come next season. They return four starters, including all-state Johnson and all-area point guard Whitney Holloway, along with four players who were in the regular rotation off the bench.

"Our younger kids will get older, which is good, and being down here, you know what? That experience is invaluable, it really is," Montini coach Jason Nichols said. "But now it's on them. We have to have new leadership with Cootie leaving and Shannon (Prince). We're going to look to (Johnson)."

"If we just keep working very hard in the off-season," Johnson said, "we'll be able to make it back down here next year."