Hampshire survives scare from Sycamore
ROCHELLE - The burst of energy the Hampshire girls basketball team needed finally came, albeit a little later than the Whip-Purs would have liked.
Down by 5 points, 34-29, with 2:50 left in the third quarter, Hampshire outscored Sycamore 8-2 to close out the quarter with a lead, and used that momentum to eventually register a 56-43 win over the Spartans Wednesday night in the semifinals of the Class 3A Rochelle regional.
Seventh-ranked and top-seeded Hampshire (27-1) will take on No. 2 seed DeKalb (19-10) in tonight's 7:30 p.m. championship game and the right to meet either Freeport or Marengo in next Monday's DeKalb sectional. DeKalb knocked off Rochelle 45-43 in Wednesday's second semifinal.
Hampshire, which has now won 9 straight since losing to South Elgin on Jan. 23, beat DeKalb 31-29 to win the DeKalb Thanksgiving tournament. But then, the Whips had defeated Sycamore 66-19 at the Harlem Christmas tournament.
"I never once mentioned 66-19," said Hampshire coach Sue Ellett after Wednesday's win. "The top of my game sheet tonight said 0-0. That was our record. Now we're 1-0. The postseason is all about getting it done for 32 minutes and moving on."
Hampshire needed most of those 32 minutes to get it done Wednesday against the fifth-seeded Spartans. Their coach, Ryan Picolotti, said after his team beat Burlington Central Monday night that it had nothing to lose against Hampshire, and that's the way the Spartans played.
"Ryan does a great job with those kids," Ellett said. "They've grown up a lot since Christmas and they're still young. But when we lost to South Elgin we said that come crunchtime, next time we're in a battle, we'd know what to do because we didn't want to feel that way again."
And the Whips did what they needed to do when they needed to do it. They turned up the defensive pressure and held Sycamore (15-13) to 2 of 11 shooting in the fourth quarter after the Spartans had gone 17 of 28 through the first three periods.
"I changed the tempo because I didn't feel like we were gaining any ground doing what we were doing," said Ellett of the game swinging the Whips' way in the final 11 minutes. "We had to change the speed of things. We had to slow down on offense and we slapped the press on."
Hampshire took its first lead since midway through the second quarter with 6 seconds to go in the third when senior Cassie Dumoulin (13 points, 6 rebounds) fought for an offensive rebound and was fouled attempting the putback. She made both free throws to put the Whips ahead 37-36 and Sycamore missed an open layup at the buzzer that would have regained it the lead.
Cassie Dumoulin scored again with 6:56 left in the game and after another Sycamore miss, Alex Dumoulin scored on an inbounds pass from Kelsey Anderson and the Whips had a 41-36 advantage.
"(Sycamore) did a good job the entire game," said Alex Dumoulin, who had a game-high 19 points and 8 rebounds. "Teamwork helped us win this game. We have confidence in ourselves that we can pull back from anything."
The Spartans closed the gap to 47-43 after a basket by junior Montia Johnson (11 points, 7 rebounds) with 2:13 to play but after a Hampshire turnover, Cassie Dumoulin blocked a shot underneath that could have made it a 2-point game.
Hampshire, which shot 16 of 39 from the field, then closed out the win with a 9-0 run, all 9 points coming from the free-throw line. Chrissy Heine (13 points) was 4 of 4 down the stretch and Alex Dumoulin was 9-for-9 from the line in the game, as the Whips made 20 of their 23 free tosses.
Senior Kate Binder led Sycamore with 15 points and junior Karla Vietinghoff hit three 3-pointers and had 11 points for Hampshire, which now turns its attention to a tall and talented DeKalb team.
"I'm sure both teams have gotten better (since Thanksgiving)," Ellett said. "We had 32 turnovers in that game and 31 points, so we'll have to make every possession count. They're a physical team but my kids will be ready to leave it all out on the floor."