Dundee-Crown earns No. 1 regional seed
If seeds hold, the Class 4A Rockford Guilford girls basketball sectional will be three-fourths Fox Valley Conference.
Dundee-Crown, Crystal Lake South and Huntley were all awarded No. 1 seeds Thursday when the IHSA released the postseason rankings.
The Chargers (13-14) grabbed the No. 1 seed in the Elgin regional, followed by Streamwood, Jacobs, Larkin and Elgin.
CL South (17-6) is the top seed at the Grant regional, followed by Prairie Ridge, Cary-Grove, McHenry, Grant and CL Central.
And at the Huntley regional, the host Red Raiders (21-4) are the top seed followed by Belvidere North, Rockford East, DeKalb and Rockford Jefferson.
Hononegah is the No. 1 seed at its own regional, which also feeds to the Guilford sectional.
The Guilford sectional winner plays in the Hoffman Estates supersectional against the winner of the Palatine sectional. Fremd, Prospect, Hersey and Stevenson are the top seeds at Palatine.
Conant is the No. 1 seed in the Geneva sectional complex, which is a 21-team field without predetermined regionals. Geneva, York and St. Charles East are the other top seeds, while Bartlett is No. 6 and South Elgin No. 9. St. Charles North, Wheaton North, Lake Park and Addison Trail are the regional hosts.
The winner of the Geneva sectional meets the winner of the Glenbrook South sectional in the Conant supersectional. New Trier, Glenbrook South, Evanston and Resurrecton are the top seeds at Glenbrook South.
In Class 3A, Burlington Central (21-3) is the top seed at the Sycamore regional with the host Spartans No. 2, Hampshire No. 3, Kaneland No. 4, St. Edward No. 5 and Genoa-Kingston No. 6. The Sycamore regional winner advances to the Hampshire sectional along with regional winners from Rochelle, Rosary and Marian Central. The top seeds in those regionals, respectively, are Rockford Lutheran, Aurora Central Catholic and Woodstock. The Hampshire sectional winner then advances to the Lewis University supersectional to face the winner of the LaSalle-Peru sectional. The top regional seeds feeding to L-P are Mendota, Galesburg, Peoria Richwoods and Morton.
The IHSA will release official pairings for the Class 3A and 4A postseason on Friday afternoon. Regionals begin the week of Feb. 16.
Conference races coming to a close: The winner of Friday night's Prairie Ridge at Hampshire game will have the inside track the Fox Valley Conference Fox Division championship. The Whip-Purs, on an eight-game winning streak, are 9-1 in the division, their only loss a 41-26 setback to PR in Crystal Lake on Jan. 10. The Wolves, meanwhile, are also 9-1, having lost to Grayslake North on Jan. 21. Hampshire closes out its conference schedule next Tuesday against Woodstock at home and PR hosts Crystal Lake Central the same night.
•In the FVC Valley the race will come down to Tuesday's Huntley at Crystal Lake South game, provided the Gators beat Cary-Grove at home Saturday afternoon. Huntley, the defending division champion, is 8-0 in the division and the Gators stand at 7-1. Huntley, which defeated South 46-29 on Jan. 13, finishes its league schedule at home next Tuesday. If Cary-Grove beats South on Saturday, Huntley clinches a tie for the title and can take it outright with a win at South on Tuesday.
•And in the Big Northern East, Burlington Central can clinch a tie for its third straight division title with a win at home against Genoa-Kingston Friday night, then the outright title with a win at home against Richmond-Burton on Monday. The Rockets have won 35 straight BN-East games.
That 1,000 number: Crystal Lake South junior Chanel Fanter became the fourth Fox Valley area player this season, and the third junior, to reach the 1,000 point mark for her career. Fanter joins Cary-Grove senior Katie Barker and juniors Maddie Versluys (Westminster Christian) and Emma Benoit (Hampshire) to reach the milestone this season.
Closing in: Speaking of 1,000 points, Burlington Central junior Samantha Pryor needs 25 points to reach the plateau, while BC senior Alison Colby is sitting on 921 career points going into the Rockets' last three games - Friday against Genoa-Kingston, Monday against Richmond-Burton and Tuesday against Marengo. All three of those games are at Rocket Hill.
Stat checking: In last week's girls basketball leaders for the Fox Valley area, we inadvertently omitted Burlington Central junior Kayla Ross from the steals leaders. Through the Rockets' win over Harvard on Tuesday, Ross now has 82 steals, an average of 3.6 per game.
Correction: In Tuesday's 72-18 win over Harvard, junior Rebecca Gerke scored 17 points for Burlington Central. It was incorrectly reported that Alison Colby had scored 17 points.