After Friday’s game, after she had time to collect her thoughts, Kenyatta Shelton uttered the words never spoken by a Crane girls basketball player before: “We just beat Marshall. This feels good.”
Unthinkable just a few years ago when Shelton was a freshman and Crane was just another Public League also-ran, the Cougars never trailed in a 51-45 Windy City West victory over the visiting Commandos.
The victory kept No. 17 Crane (6-0, 1-0 in conference) unbeaten. But more than that, it proved to the Illinois State-bound Shelton, a senior and the Cougars’ captain, that this team had arrived.
“Last year we had a shot,” Shelton said. “We were up 25 points.”
But that lead fizzled and Crane lost. Not this time as the 6-foot-1-inch Shelton had 16 points and 11 rebounds and Shalonda Young came off the bench to score 10 points to lead the Cougars.
Crane took a lead 19 seconds into the game on Brittany Elliott’s three-pointer and never looked back. At halftime, despite shooting only 18 percent, the Cougars led 27-20. That’s because they took a whopping 39 shots to Marshall’s 23 and forced the Commandos into 13 turnovers.
Late in the third quarter Crane built its lead to 15 points on two consecutive baskets by Young. But no one said defeating Marshall for the first time was going to be easy. The Commandos (5-4, 1-1) closed to 47-42 after Kenya Howard’s three-point play with 2:54 left. But Crane managed to hold on.
“He has a really talented team,” said Marshall coach Dorothy Gaters, the winningest coach in Illinois girls history, of Crane coach Maurice Garner. “They did the little things–like make free throws.”
Howard’s 13 points led Marshall, while freshman Adrienne Godbold added 10 rebounds. Crane’s Lanikia Lawrence added nine points and Elliott had seven points and five steals.
“Miss Gaters, she’s a wonderful coach,” Shelton said. “So we played aggressive.”
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asutton@tribune.com
