Brennan leads South Elgin over Streamwood
With Streamwood doing its best to take Megan McClure out of the game, South Elgin needed someone else to step up. Casey Brennan answered the call.
The Storm senior poured in 24 points, grabbed 7 rebounds and dished out 4 assists to lead South Elgin to a 58-49 win in the semifinals of the Class 4A Elgin regional.
The second-seeded Storm will meet No. 3 Barrington for the regional title at 7 p.m. Thursday.
Tied at 20 in the second period, Brennan made 2 free throws, then dished to Rachel Kelly for a 3-pointer to start an 11-2 run, putting the Storm ahead to stay.
"At the timeout with about 2 minutes left in the half we told them that we need to get a stretch, get some breathing room before halftime, get feeling good about ourselves and stuff like that," said South Elgin coach Dan Mandernack.
"We did not take them lightly at all. Our full focus for the last week since we figured we'd play Streamwood has been on them."
Brennan had 9 points in the second quarter as South Elgin opened a 36-26 halftime lead.
"I've been in this position for this position for 3 years now and I just want this year to be special, leave the seniors something to remember this season by," Brennan said. "So I'm just working for my teammates."
"(Brennan) has that look in her eyes," said Mandernack. "I said it at the timeout and they were laughing at me, that this is the eye of the tiger. It's the playoffs. Step up. She really willed us. They took away Megan, which teams are going to do, so other kids have got to step up, and she really did."
Streamwood, which lost to the Storm by double digits twice during the regular season, wouldn't give up. Trailing 50-36 after 3 quarters, the Sabres opened the fourth with a 7-0 run and the Storm never led by more than 9 the rest of the way.
Alexis Rojas came up big for Streamwood with 17 points. Brennan and the Storm defense did a good job of containing Mandy Mien but she still finished with 11 points. Riya Patel added 8.
The Sabres hurt their cause at the free-throw line, making just 2 of 11.
McClure finished with 7 points for South Elgin. Caroline Croft, Madison Waichunas and Ella Winterhalder each scored 6 points.
"Tough way to end," said Streamwood coach George Rosner. "We really thought we could have been in this game tomorrow. "
Rosner noted that his players stuck with it through some tough times early in the season and it started to pay off as the year progressed.
"I think we got better as the season went on, and I think, just what you saw here tonight, we became a very dangerous team down the stretch," he said.