For all its basketball tradition, for all its experience in the grind of the Public League season, Young’s girls had a gaping hole in their resume entering this season.
There was no state championship to say that the Dolphins, at some point since the first tournament finals in 1977, were the best.
That was fixed Saturday night.
Ashlee Anderson scored a team-high 14 points to lead Young to a 54-45 victory over Bolingbrook at Redbird Arena for the first Class 4A state title in the Dolphins’ first state championship game.
And the victory gave the Public League an unprecedented sweep of state titles on the same day. Earlier, Marshall beat Freeport for the Class 3A crown.
The Dolphins (30-3) withstood a late run sparked by Bolingbrook freshman Ariel Massengale, who finished with a game-high 22 points. The Raiders, Class AA state champs in 2006, finished 28-4.
“We made history tonight,” said senior Kiara Conner of Young, which finished third in 2005 and 2006. “It means everything. We worked so hard every day in practice for this. This is what it came down to. We played our best basketball tonight.”
Young got off to a good start by scoring the game’s first four points. After Bolingbrook tied the game at 4-4 on two free throws by Nicosia Henry, Young’s Kara Smith put in two of her own with 2:35 left in the first quarter for a 6-4 lead. D’Frantz Smart scored with 54 seconds left to give the Dolphins an 8-4 lead at the end of period.
Bolingbrook came back and put together a 7-0 run at the start of the second quarter and then went ahead 14-10 on a three-pointer by Massengale. After Smart hit a three of her own, Massengale scored twice for an 18-13 lead.
But Smart wouldn’t let the Dolphins fold. She scored four of her nine first-half points in the final three minutes of the second quarter, and teammate Ashlee Anderson hit a three-pointer with 17 seconds until halftime for a 20-20 tie.
Heading into the fourth quarter, Young had a 32-30 lead.
