Wheeling downs Geneva for third place
NORMAL - After beating Geneva 59-40 Saturday night in the third-place game of the Class 4A girls basketball state tournament, Wheeling coach Shelly Wiegel broke from standard protocol.
Instead of bringing three or four of her players to the media interview room, Wiegel's entire Wildcat team showed up. And if Wiegel could have squeezed in the hundreds of Wheeling fans chanting "His-tor-y!" as the Wildcats walked off the floor, she probably would have wanted them to be part of celebration, too.
The Wildcats capped their best season in school history by taking third in state, a night after state champion Bolingbrook denied Wheeling a spot in the title game.
"We talked about putting yesterday behind us," Wiegel said. "We talked about finishing with a win. We felt yesterday (Friday) wasn't our best game. We wanted to put together a great effort and send our seniors out, our whole team out, on a winning note. We went out and did it."
At which point all her players broke into a huge cheer.
Geneva (32-2) and Wheeling (33-2) shared plenty of similarities: Both making their first state appearances, both with losses to Young, both with a senior all-stater, both with highly successful fifth-year coaches, and both with huge fan followings at Redbird Arena.
The difference Saturday came down to defense, with Wheeling holding Geneva to a frigid 29 percent shooting. While Wheeling outrebounded Geneva 31-24, the Vikings countered by forcing 25 turnovers.
But all the missed shots caught up with the Vikings, especially when Wheeling went on a game-deciding 13-0 burst to break a third-quarter tie and Geneva couldn't find an answer.
"It was a great first half, nip and tuck in the third quarter and we went cold and couldn't convert," Geneva coach Gina Nolan said.
Wheeling got off to a good start, forcing 4 turnovers on Geneva's first 6 possessions. Second-chance points hurt Geneva in Friday's loss to Young, and Purdue-bound Ashley Wilson started the game with a third-chance putback. Stephanie Kuzmanic and Bianca Szafarowicz followed with drives down the lane, putting Wheeling up 11-3.
Geneva's Division I player, senior Taylor Whitley, scored 25 points Friday night. But Szafarowicz helped hound Whitley into a 4-of-15 night, holding the Indiana State recruit 8 points below her 20-point average.
"I knew she was quick," Szafarowicz said. "I kept my distance so she couldn't drive on me."
Neither team took care of the ball, combining for 28 first-half turnovers. The play picked up in the third quarter, first with a 6-0 run by Geneva to tie the game at 27 on Whitley's layup.
It was about at the same point in the third quarter Friday, after Geneva had taken its only lead of the game in the semifinals, that the wheels came off. It happened again, with Janelle Cannon's second deep 3-pointer, 4 points from Szafarowicz and a couple strong low-post moves by Kuzmanic keying the 13-0 burst and 40-27 lead.
"Obviously they are a good team, they put together some runs, but even when they took the lead at one point, there was no panic," said Wiegel, now 137-23 in her 5 seasons to Nolan's 117-30. "Everyone knew what we needed to do to take care of business."
Wiegel said Cannon has such range she told her junior to shoot from the back of the rack in the 3-point Shootout. Cannon might have been even further back than that Saturday.
"(Coach) was yelling at me for not shooting," Cannon said of her two long 3s. "She doubted me. She even said it was short and it went in."
"She's very comfortable from back there," said Wiegel. "We don't need them (NBA-range 3s) every game, but it is such a killer to the defense. You can see the frustration. Sometimes I equate a 3 in a girls game to a dunk in a guys game."
Wheeling led 41-30 heading to the fourth quarter. Geneva never got closer, its 32-game season-long winning streak derailed by its two worst shooting nights of the year.
"We had another bad shooting night," Nolan said. "Sad to have the season end and sad to have another loss but so proud of everything we have accomplished. A loss doesn't take away from what these kids accomplished and all the effort they put into every game, especially this weekend."
Whitley's 12 points leave her at a school-record 2,131 in her career, with the Vikings 104-16 in that stretch. Sophomore Kat Yelle added 10 points and Lauren Wicinski 9 points and 9 rebounds.
"There are teams at home watching us on TV," Whitley said. "Only four teams get downstate, we're happy to be one of them. We didn't win either game but we tried our best. We made memories we'll never forget."
Cannon scored 17 of her game-high 20 points in the second half. Szafarowicz finished with 18 points, 8 rebounds and 5 assists while Wilson posted 12 points, 15 rebounds and 3 blocks.