Montini 54, Washington 39

And a freshman shall lead them.

Whitney Holloway delivered a career-high 27 points to lead the Montini girls basketball team to a 54-39 triumph over Washington in the Class 3A St. Xavier University supersectional Monday night at the Shannon Center in Chicago.

"Man, Holloway," Broncos coach Jason Nichols said. "As a youngster, sometimes she defers, but you know what? She can't defer. That kid can score. She was special. She looked like a senior out there."

"We all want to go to state so bad and I was going to do whatever it took for us to go," said Holloway, who shot 10-for-17 from the field, including 3 of 6 from 3-point range.

"I think she did an awesome job," said Montini sophomore center Michala Johnson, who was her usual tough self around the basket, totaling 20 points on 8-of-11 shooting and grabbing 14 rebounds. "For her to be a freshman coming out and just dominating like that, I think she did so good. I'm so proud of her."

The tandem of Holloway and Johnson fueled a second-half comeback to enable Montini (27-5) to break its supersectional curse. After seeing their season end with a supersectional loss each of the past three years, the Broncos find themselves in the Final Four for the first time in the program's history. They'll play Freeport, a 50-48 winner against Peoria Richwoods on Monday, in the state semifinals at 1:45 p.m. Friday at Redbird Arena in Normal.

The Broncos kept their season alive by outscoring Washington 35-16 in the second half.

"We've been in tough situations before," Nichols said. "We found a way to win."

Washington (19-13) used a 12-0 run in the first half to go up 17-10, and went into the locker room holding a 23-19 edge after center Domonique Mosley drained a 3-pointer to close the half.

"We went into halftime and I think we had some doubts," Nichols said.

The Minutewomen scored the first 5 points of the third quarter to move ahead 28-19, but then Montini began its comeback as Johnson scored off a spin move and Mallory Sosnovich canned a 3-pointer from the baseline.

Soon after that, the Broncos reeled off 11 straight points with Holloway scoring 7 of them on the way to a 19-3 spree that put them in front 46-35 with 5:25 remaining.

"We knew we had to do something to get us going because it was a close game," Holloway said. "We weren't about to let them take it away from us."

Washington sophomore guard Centrese McGee totaled a team-high 17 points.