Rolling Meadows makes its mark

The most explosive offense in the northwest suburbs is back.

After being held to under 50 points in its last two games by Montini and Palatine, Rolling Meadows’ girls basketball team lit up the scoreboard like it has most of the season in a 92-37 victory over visiting Buffalo Grove on Saturday afternoon.

Past and future Rolling Meadows basketball players got to see the Mustangs at their best as they improved to 18-1 and 5-0 in the Mid-Suburban East.

Members of the school’s last regional championship team (2003) were honored at halftime and Meadows’ feeder program girls got to play an exhibition game at halftime.

“We finally started making our shots,” said Mustangs junior sharpshooter Alexis Glasgow, who fired home a game-high 28 points (with 6 3-pointers) followed by Jackie Kemph (24), Sami Kay (13) and Jenny Vliet (8). “It’s been a while but we’ve spent a lot of time in practice shooting. We ran our Loyola offense (transition) real well and that led to a lot of scoring opportunities.”

Mustangs coach Ryan Kirkorsky, whose team is averaging 72 points, received texts from his players early in the morning.

They wanted to come early to the gym to shoot.

“One of the most important things is that in our last few games the kids would start thinking they’d shoot better by wishing it would happen,” Kirkorskly said. “We told them they’ve got to put more time in practice shooting, and as you would guess, they texted me this morning and wanted to come in early.”

Sure enough, they were making their shots right from the get-go Saturday.

Junior Sami Kay delivered a 3-pointer from the baseline less than a minute into the game and before you knew it, Meadows was up 24-1 with three minutes still left in the first quarter.

“Sami Kay played very well,” Kirkorsky said. “She was aggressive on both ends of the floor.”

The Mustangs led 53-16 at intermission. It was their highest scoring half of the season.

“Defensively I thought we blocked out well,” Glasgow said. “And they (Buffalo Grove) run a lot of the same stuff we do, so that gave us an edge.”

Former Mustang guard Maddie Conlin, now at Notre Dame but back for alumni day, gave the Mustangs a pregame pep talk.

“She was a player so important to the program,” Kirkorsky said. “We had a nice discussion (in a pregame chat with team) about the legacy you want to leave behind as a player.”

The Mustangs were 9-for-20 from 3-point range and shot 32-of-67 from the floor for 47 percent.

“They’re a very good basketball team,” said first-year BG coach Steve Koldziej. “They are very well-coached.

“We talked at half about not being ready to play and not giving the effort we needed. We responded a little better in the second half, but the bottom line is you can’t just do it do for a few minutes.

“We’ll have to go back and see what we did, and obviously make changes for the second time we play them.”

The Bison were led by junior Angela Budimir (13 points), sophomore Madeline Callahan (7) and junior Courtney Meyer (6).

Meadows’ nine 3-pointers were one shy of their season high and their total points were second best this season to their 95-72 win over Wheaton North.

Junior guards Elizabeth Vasilogambros and Chloe Prodanovic also had 3s do Meadows.

Meyer had two for BG while freshman Madie Welter and senior Amanda Salzman each had one for BG (4-13, 1-4).