Illiana Christian couldn’t do the most necessary of things to win a basketball game–score–against Decatur St. Teresa on Saturday and that cost the Vikings a chance to reach the Class A state championship.
In the semifinals for the first time in five trips to the Elite Eight, the Vikings made only 16 of 66 attempts from the field–a 24.2 percentage–and fell to the unbeaten Bulldogs 56-42 in the afternoon in Redbird Arena.
“It seemed like we got our shots, but none of them were falling,” said Kelly Kuiper, who was a little better than the team by hitting 6 of 18 shots, scoring 13 points and grabbing 13 rebounds.
Illiana Christian (21-12) will take a trophy back to Lansing–albeit one for fourth place. Carthage (27-8) took the third-place game 60-41 behind Lexanne Dickerson’s 15 points.
Vikings leading scorer Erica Bruxvoort had 13 points and six rebounds in her final high school game.
“Mentally, it’s really draining to come back after a loss,” Bruxvoort said. “We could’ve been more physical.”
Decatur St. Teresa, unbeaten going into the championship game against Hampshire, had a comfortable 28-17 halftime lead in the semifinals. But the Vikings closed the gap to 38-30 with 41 seconds left in the third quarter on a Kuiper basket.
The Bulldogs, as Bruxvoort pointed out, were “big and strong inside and moved the ball really well.” St. Teresa’s 6-2 Lindsay Ippel hit Illiana with 21 points and nine rebounds while 6-1 Monica Rogers had 13 points, 12 rebounds.
Bruxvoort managed a double-double, too–14 points, 13 rebounds.
Coaches’ choices: The Class A girls coaches from around the state named only one Chicago-area player to their all-state first team–Illiana’s Bruxvoort, who will be going on to play volleyball at Bethel College in Indiana.
The team included eight other seniors: Anna-Jonesboro’s Kassie Drew, Normal U-High’s Ashlee Pistorius, Carlyle’s Laura Rudolphi, Riverton’s Devyn Flanagan, Decatur St. Teresa’s Monica Rogers, Benton’s Julie Sweetin, and two from Carthage–Lexanne Dickerson and Megan Shirey.
Freshman Brittany Johnson was also named.
Hope’s Latear Eason, Bishop McNamara’s Jennifer Juergens and Hampshire’s Jackie Heine were named to the second team.
Named to the third team was Hampshire’s 6-1 Nicole Watzlawick, who scored 21 points in Saturday’s semifinal victory over Carthage.
