Like greeting a colleague, hailing a taxi, rising for the national anthem–that’s how natural Olga Gvozdenovic’s footwork seemed in the Class AA girls basketball championship game last weekend.
Gvozdenovic, back to the basket, would receive a pass. She’d quickly turn, jump and shoot. The result? Usually a score and the reason Loyola was able to get by Galesburg, Marshall and East St. Louis Lincoln for its second consecutive state title.
For her dominance not only at Redbird Arena but during Loyola’s entire record-breaking season, the 6-foot-2-inch junior has been named to the Tribune’s 1997-98 All-State Girls Basketball Team.
Joining Gvozdenovic on the first team is the only repeat selection–Maine West’s Dawn Vana–along with Taylorville’s Allison Curtin, Quincy’s Ruth Kipping and Marshall’s Kourtney Walton.
“When Olga came in as a freshman, she had so much to learn on offense and defense,” Loyola coach Tanya Johnson said. “Her footwork was horrible, but her athleticism masked a lot of things people who aren’t coaches wouldn’t see.”
Gvozdenovic, who finished third last fall in the girls state tennis tournament, still has that athleticism. But she has much more, Johnson said.
“Her focus is much better, her concentration is much better,” Johnson said.
Those qualities have led to some must-read numbers. She has led the Class AA finals in scoring two straight seasons with 155 points in six games. Gvozdenovic–listed as one of the top 10 juniors in the nation at the beginning of the season by USA Today–hasn’t scored fewer than 21 points at Redbird Arena in the finals.
Significant is that she averaged 17.5 points a game for the season. And Loyola, 67-3 in winning back-to-back titles, set a state girls record of 36 victories this season.
Gvozdenovic also gives Loyola back-to-back appearances on this All-State team. Last season Kristin Santa, now on Drake’s NCAA tournament team, made it.
Unlike last season’s All-State team, dominated by outstanding guard play, this one is big and multitalented. Gvozdenovic and Vana are both 6-2, Kipping 6-1, Walton 5-11 and Curtin 5-10. Gvozdenovic and Walton are juniors, the others seniors.
Despite their size, labeling these players with positions is somewhat useless.
Maine West coach Derril Kipp started using Vana, who will play for Illinois next season, at point guard as a freshman.
“She was about the same size as she is now, but we didn’t have any guards then,” Kipp said. “Then, as my taller kids left, she had to go inside.”
Vana’s most marked improvement in the last four years is “her ability to get everyone else involved in a game,” Kipp said. “If she wasn’t a top scorer, she’d be a top rebounder. If she wasn’t a top rebounder, she’d be an assist leader. She did everything well in all categories of the game.”
Painting Vana by the numbers–the Warriors could count on her for 17 points and nearly 10 rebounds a game–hardly completes the picture.
This athlete–who has pitched for Maine West’s boys baseball team–has other attributes that can’t be read in a box score.
“It’s a fact that Dawn Vana hates to lose,” said Kathy McConnell, assistant women’s basketball coach at Illinois. “She loves the game of basketball. Anyone can see that.”
Illinois will not only have Vana next season, but Curtin.
“A lot of people have said she’s the best athlete to come through here–ever,” Taylorville coach Carol Wilson said of Curtin.
The Tornadoes’ storied history includes the 45-0 boys team of 1944. That’s some statement.
Curtin is used to making statements herself, and so much wanted to this season after last year’s 59-40 loss to Loyola in the Class AA championship game. Taylorville was en route to Normal again when it ran into underpublicized East St. Louis Lincoln in the supersectionals. Curtin fouled out with 23 seconds left in regulation and the Tornadoes lost 70-67 in overtime.
Curtin said she felt she let down the team and the thousands of Taylorville fans. Uh-huh. Let’s put it this way: She scored almost 1,000 points (actually 927) this season–a career for most players–in averaging 29 points a game.
“She’s been asked to play every position on her team,” McConnell said. “Asked to do everything that Carol Wilson wanted.”
That includes guarding the other team’s leading scorer. Curtin, who has the speed of a track athlete (third in the state 400 meters as a freshman, fifth in the long jump as a junior), had 157 steals in 32 games this season.
Quincy’s Ruth Kipping won the Class AA 800 meters as a freshman, so she fits right in with Curtin as a standout in track. But she’s headed for another Big Ten school, Michigan.
“We’re not going to be able to replace her,” Quincy coach Tom Berry said. “She averaged just over 22 points a game, and that was with two people guarding her. She’s matured a lot since her freshman year.”
He’s right. Like Vana, Kipping helped bring the ball up against the press. Like Curtin, she was a scoring machine, breaking former Illini Bruce Douglas’ school scoring record.
Berry said Kipping doesn’t take many three-point shots, but she entered Quincy’s three-point shooting contest. She won that, hitting 10 of 15.
Marshall’s Kourtney Walton, like Gvozdenovic, is back next season.
“She’s going to be recruited by all the top schools,” said coach Dorothy Gaters, the Marshall legend who finished the season with 628 career victories. “She’s a very coachable kid.”
Coachable and awesome. Marshall spread its prolific scoring around, so maybe Walton’s statistics weren’t eye-popping. But her play was.
With the previously unbeaten Commandos up 37-36 in the third quarter of its state semifinal game with Loyola, Walton stole the ball at midcourt and swooped in for a basket, was fouled and converted from the foul line for a 40-36 lead.
“She can do it all,” said Gaters, who has seen it all from Jennifer Jones to Kim Williams. “She prefers to be a wing player–but it’s criminal if you don’t put her in the post. It’s so difficult for other players to guard her.”
Or anyone else on this team.
