Sycamore pulls off upset of Burlington Central
ROCHELLE - The Burlington Central girls basketball team won't get a third shot at Hampshire after all.
Sycamore sophomore Lake Kwaza, who finished second in the Class 2A 100-meter dash at last spring's state track meet, employed smothering defense on Burlington Central senior scoring leader Jordan Maisto and the fifth-seeded Spartans upset No. 4 seed BC 58-54 in the opening round of the Class 3A Rochelle regional Monday night.
Sycamore (15-12) will meet top seed Hampshire (26-1) in Wednesday's 6 p.m. semifinal. The Whip-Purs beat Sycamore 66-19 at the Harlem Christmas tournament.
In Monday's game, the Spartans didn't look like a team that could lose by 47 points to anyone. They came out in an effective box-and-one with Kwaza on Maisto, limiting the Rockets' sharpshooter's touches and taking Central out of the flow of its offense.
"Our game plan was to take (Maisto) out of the game," said Sycamore coach Ryan Picolotti. "She's a very good player. When she's not scoring she's doing other things. But we did what we wanted to do. Lake did a great job on her."
And how. Maisto got only 6 shots in the game - 4 of them in the fourth quarter. Kwaza, who led Sycamore with 17 points, held Maisto to just 5 points on the night.
"She did a great job," said a dejected Maisto, who finishes her career as Central's second all-time leading scorer with 1,085 points. "I didn't play my game. Everybody else stepped up and I didn't play my game."
Sycamore jumped out to an 11-1 lead and the Rockets (17-11) were left climbing a mountain all night. Four times they were able to tie the game but they didn't lead once all night.
"We didn't execute what we should have done," said first-year BC coach Stephanie Smith. "We had too many turnovers and we couldn't get any over that back calls. Sycamore didn't do anything we haven't seen before."
Trailing 40-35 after three quarters, Central had a chance to tie with under 4 minutes to play. Senior Katie McNutt (14 points) hit a 3-pointer to make it 45-42 at the 3:57 mark but her 3-point attempt to tie the game 24 seconds later rimmed out. Sycamore then went on a 7-2 run to make it a 52-44 game with 2:01 left and the closest Central would get down the stretch would be 57-54 when Maisto banked in her only 3-pointer of the game with just 2 seconds to play. BC fouled Kwaza made 1 of 2 free throws with 0.7 seconds to play for the final margin.
Central shot just 19 of 52 for the night and turned the ball over 19 times. The Rockets were also outrebounded 38-33 and Sycamore shot much better, hitting on 21 of 45 from the field. The Spartans also made 16 of 27 from the line; BC 10 of 16.
Senior Taylor Colby led the Rockets with 16 points and 11 rebounds. Sophomore Brenda Thasavong had 11 points and 7 rebounds.
Junior center Montia Johnson added 15 points and 8 rebounds for Sycamore.
"Jordan stepped up as good as she could, Taylor had a great game and Katie McNutt stepped up big again, said Smith, whose team would have had a better seed if not for an upset loss to Kaneland earlier in the season. "But we have to get mentally tougher. The state tournament isn't the time for all the mental mistakes we made tonight.
"I wish it would have fallen differently for the six seniors. They're a great group of kids. I'm very proud of them and I'll miss those six seniors more than I can explain."