West Chicago beats Lisle in OT, still in hunt for tourney title
Senior guard Mae Elizabeth Gimre entered this season as the lone returning starter for an inexperienced West Chicago girls basketball team.
"I was a little nervous going into it, but all of the girls have stepped up and it's been really great," Gimre said.
"I was excited, actually, with all of the juniors coming in because it gives us some time to grow. Last year they fought out of a lot of games so I knew they would fight out here on the varsity."
On Friday West Chicago and Lisle both showed plenty of determination before the Wildcats prevailed 43-37 in overtime at Riverside-Brookfield's 12th annual Bill Vandemerkt Thanksgiving Tournament.
Gimre helped the Wildcats (3-3) with a game-high 17 points, including her basket with 2:07 left in OT that broke a 37-37 tie followed by four free throws from senior Hailey Sartore.
Lisle (2-3) held a slim lead most of the fourth quarter, but the Wildcats sent the game into OT at 35-35 after Bria Williams' basket with 1:25 left. The Wildcats missed a last-second shot after Amari Stafford stole the ball back with 22 seconds left.
"It feels really good. It was a great win for the team," Gimre said. "I think it was just our drive to win and just get this team win, focusing on having everybody work hard."
West Chicago, 3-1 in the six-team, round-robin format, can be tournament champion by winning Saturday's final round against Riverside-Brookfield (4-0 in tourney). If there's a three-way tie with Morton (3-1), which beat the Wildcats 50-38 Monday, the fewest points allowed for the tournament will determine the champion.
"I thought we did some good things - kids stepping up, scoring some buckets when we needed, big free throws by Haley Sartore," West Chicago coach Kim Wallner said. "We're still young. This is a nice win for us early in the season because we're still like a work in progress."
Both teams played man-to-man defense throughout and neither led by more than five points.
The Lions' effort especially was admirable considering they had just seven players and that was with reserve Kelsey Kretman arriving just before game time from Michigan. Junior Sarah Mogensen, their top post player, has been out since twisting her ankle just before halftime during Tuesday's 52-35 loss to Morton.
Four players accounted for all of Lisle's points, led by freshman point guard Natalie Takahashi's 15 points and sophomore TyAnn LeGrand-Melton's 12. The Lions, 1-3 in the tournament, play Guerin Saturday.
"I just told them it was a gutty effort. We played hard. We did the things we needed to do to be in a position to win," Lisle coach Nick Balaban said. "I thought we did a lot of things well. (And) we shot ourselves in the foot a few times."
Six players scored for the Wildcats, who used 11 players and nine on a regular basis. After the third quarter Williams had 8 of her 11 points and Sartore scored all of her 5 points.
Lisle opened the second half by hitting 14 straight free throws but made just 2 of 10 in overtime. Takahashi was 13 of 20.
"I thought we outexecuted them towards the end, the last minute or two of overtime," Wallner said. "We kind of kept with it. We were going to pressure. I thought we wore them down."
The Wildcats went scoreless the first five minutes of the game. Five straight points from Gimre ended the first quarter with West Chicago leading 8-6.
Gimre's 3-pointer to end the third quarter gave the Wildcats a 24-21 lead and they extended it to 26-21 with a basket by Williams. Lisle went ahead 34-31 on Takahashi free throws before Williams hit two free throws and scored off Gimre's inside pass to force overtime.
Gimre was pleased with her pass, her scoring and also limiting Lisle's 5-foot-11 Leah Reeves to 2 points.
"It's more than I usually get. It was good defensively, but I like when I can do the defense and offense pretty well so that was very exciting," Gimre said.
This was the Lions' fourth game during a stretch in which they are playing nine games in 15 days.
"I told the media coming into the season it doesn't matter what our record is coming out of this tourney. This was going to prepare us for going forward," Balaban said. "I've been coaching 30 years and this is probably one of the better groups of kids I've been around. I think we'll be a pretty good team once we get everybody back."