With her team’s season on the line Thursday night, junior guard Annalyse McCarty wanted to provide that much-needed spark for Aurora Central Catholic.
That’s not surprising, either. It’s why coach LeVada Smith has dubbed McCarty an “Energizer Bunny.” And then she delivered for the Chargers during a key situation in the fourth quarter.
“I was super scared,” McCarty said. “I was like, ‘Just don’t miss.’ Then I made it and I was like, ‘Deep breath.’ It gave us a good spark, but we just couldn’t pull through at the end.”
With ACC trailing by six points, McCarty converted a layup and drew a foul in the process. Even though she missed the free throw with 2:06 left, the Chargers felt like there was still a chance.
The fiery McCarty finished with six points, but the second-seeded Chargers came up short in their comeback bid as top-seeded Glenbard South pulled out a 43-36 win in the Class 3A De La Salle Sectional championship game in Chicago.
Sofia Orozco led all scorers with 11 points for ACC (22-11), while Ashley Watters added nine and Gina Dutkanych chipped in with eight. Rheayanna Ferguson and Jamie Mizwicki paced Glenbard South (29-4) with 10 points apiece.
McCarty’s shot, meanwhile, gave the Chargers hope. They stayed within arm’s length of Glenbard South all night, but that big bucket wasn’t enough to close the gap.
“When she made that, I was like, ‘We have to go, we have to make another basket,’” Orozco said. “Obviously, we didn’t, but we tried.”
Smith recognized in the moment how significant that shot was.
“Yeah, I thought that was huge,” Smith said. “She didn’t make the free throw, but I think it ignited people. Finally we have something positive. We can build on it. We just ran out of time.”
The fact that McCarty focuses more on her cross country and track careers than focusing basketball wasn’t lost on Smith.
“If she played basketball year-round, I think she could play in college,” Smith said. “She has all the tools to be an even more accomplished basketball player. She goes out there and battles.”
For her part, McCarty contended that she’s not sure Smith’s assessment of her potential basketball future is entirely accurate. But it still means a lot just the same.
“I think I may be a little short,” McCarty said. “It makes me really happy. It makes me want to keep going.”
McCarty’s contributions don’t show up on the stat sheet every night, but Smith knows how valuable she has been in helping the Chargers get back to the sectional final.
“She’s always going, always flying around,” Smith said of McCarty. “What you saw there is what she usually does. She’ll get a steal or take a hard foul going to the basket. She’s very strong.”
Despite basketball being her second sport, McCarty cherishes moments like she had Thursday.
“I love basketball,” McCarty said. “I focus on basketball when it’s basketball season. I don’t mix the two.”
After two disappointing seasons that finished without regional titles, Smith was proud of ACC getting back to this stage, especially after losing Grace Grunloh and Ella Oester to injuries for the season before the winter even started, making their run even more impressive.
Oester did make a late-season comeback.
“We struggled early,” Smith said. The kids were buying in. I think they started to realize that they needed each other. I’m proud of them. If you told me we lost two of our starters and Ella still battled back and we got to the sectional finals? I told them I’m proud of them.
“I felt like this season was one of the more rewarding seasons as a coach.”
McCarty, for one, realizes what the Chargers had to go through to get here.
“It was a battle at the beginning,” McCarty said. “We had a lot of tough losses. But we battled and kept getting better as the season went on.
Paul Johnson is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
