Elgin Academy advances to sectional final

It's such a simple play, when a player drives to the low block on one side of the free throw lane, draws the defense, and then passes to an open player on the opposite side of the free throw lane.

So simple, and so devastating in the way Elgin Academy's girls basketball team performed it in the second half of its 58-44 win over Morgan Park Academy in the semifinals of the Class 1A Mooseheart sectional on Monday.

"We were talking about that at halftime," Elgin Academy coach Vicente Pena said. "They were committing. We drew it up and it looks good on paper. But they did it very well and it worked."

Elgin Academy (14-9) moves to Thursday's sectional title game against the winner of tonight's Ottawa Marquette vs. Hinckley-Big Rock game. H-BR is the defending Class 1A state champion.

"If you'd told me at the start of the season we'd be where we are right now, I wouldn't have believed you," Elgin Academy's Alyssa Pena said. "I'm just so happy I can share this with my team."

Morgan Park (20-8) was missing six players - and three starters - who were on various educational trips. One of those remaining starters was 6-foot-3 center Kierra Morris, who nearly single-handedly kept the Warriors in the game. She scored 23 points and added 15 rebounds. But it was Morris and Eileen Cullina, the Warriors' normal starters in Monday's game, whom the Hilltoppers started to pull out of position with their second half drives.

"In the first quarter, I noticed that when I got to the baseline, we weren't looking down low," Alyssa Pena said. "I think we were scared of them. But in the second half, we knew not to be scared of them. We knew we could get through them and they left a lot of spaces down low."

Elgin Academy had to come up with some sort of game-changing tactic because Morgan Park recovered from an early 14-2 deficit and stayed with the Hilltoppers every step of the way through the midpoint of the third quarter.

But from a 32-32 tie, Elgin Academy surged with a 5-point spurt, with all those points coming from Pena. The Hilltoppers benefitted from a return to some of the things that created their huge early advantage.

"I think we stopped fast-breaking," Alyssa Pena said. "They caught up and we had some unforced turnovers. But we fixed that problem and it didn't happen as much."

Pena was a major beneficiary of the second-half surge. She scored 22 points and had 8 rebounds. Senior Lauren Steimle also scored with abandon for the Hilltoppers, Steimle had 15 of her 21 points in the first half but finished with 6 points in a strong fourth quarter.

Steimle's contributions, coupled with Pena's prowess, took the lead to 53-39 with five minutes to play. Morgan Park tried to rally again, but this time the Warriors were too far back with too little time left.