advertisement

Elk Grove, Maine South will meet for regional title

Thirty-two years ago this month a pair of Mid-Suburban League All-Conference honorees, Kyle Ingebrigtsen and Michelle Heidlauf, were leading Elk Grove's boys and girls basketball teams on the floor at Charles Aldrich Gymnasium.

Flash forward to Tuesday night as Kyle and Michelle's daughter, Elk Grove senior center Kaitlyn Ingebrigtsen, and her teammates were facing a touch task against a Glenbrook South squad that had no intentions of going down without a fight in their Class 4A regional semifinal.

The sixth-seeded Grenadiers did all the little things and then some to hold off the 10th-seeded Titans 48-43 and earn a ticket to Thursday's regional final versus Maine South. The third-seeded Hawks cruised past No. 14 Lincoln Park 80-29 in Tuesday's first contest.

"I expected a really tough game," Elk Grove coach Jennifer Buxton said. "Glenbrook South is not your usual 10 seed. They're a very good team. We took this game very seriously. We had a lot of good team chemistry and tried to move the ball. We had some messy moments but at the same time we were able to settle in and not let them get the lead."

After grabbing the lead on sophomore Lili Duckmann's 3-pointer midway through the first, the Grenadiers (17-11) led by as many as 10 before a 7-0 run by GBS closed the gap to 27-25 with 5:34 left in the third.

From then on, the hosts responded to attempt after attempt by South (12-19) to come back as the trio of Duckmann (19 points), A.J. Trausch (12) and Megan Murray (10) paced the Grens by scoring 40 of their 48 points on the night with Trausch connecting on 3 of 4 from the foul line in the game's final minute that finally settled matters, while Ingebrigtsen collected 8 of Elk Grove's 24 rebounds that allowed it to control the paint.

Duckmann credited her teammate's energy, which allowed it to feed each other.

"We really made sure our energy was up," Duckmann said. "It's just today we were all about the game."

In the opening contest Maine South (25-6) rolled out to a 24-3 first-quarter advantage by forcing 17 turnovers from a Lincoln Park squad (13-17) that shot just 3 of 12 in the period.

The Gardiner sisters, Nicole (21 points) and Niamh (14 points), led Maine South in the scoring column. Senior forward Zoe Ogele led the Lions with 12.

Article Comments
Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.