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South Elgin outlasts Batavia in OT

The eighth and ninth seeds of a girls basketball sectional can make for lively theatre in a regional semifinal.

South Elgin needed four extra minutes to secure a 39-36 victory over Batavia at the Class 4A Addison Trail regional Tuesday night.

"What a weird game," South Elgin coach Dan Mandernack said of a contest as peculiar as the outcome was delayed.

The Storm (19-8) captured their eighth straight game and will face Conant (22-5), the top seed of the Geneva sectional, on Thursday.

Batavia, the No. 9 seed, did not score from the floor in the first quarter.

The Bulldogs, which had their season end at 15-15, returned the defensive favor to the Storm in the fourth quarter.

Batavia had only two players - Hannah Frazier and Jessica Koch - score from the field during regulation.

Batavia missed all 11 of its field-goal attempts in the opening quarter as well as its first four offerings of the second quarter.

"We threw the first punch and came out with a sense of urgency," Mandernack said.

"I don't know if was jitters from the outside," Batavia coach Kevin Jensen said of the Bulldogs' first-half struggles. "We didn't anticipate and see the floor very well early."

But the game would continue to confound as it progressed.

Cara Fahey had the only two field goals for the Storm - back-to-back 3-pointers - and South Elgin would not have a second-half conventional field goal until Laura McIntosh had a putback off her own miss to open the overtime scoring.

Frazier single-handedly kept Batavia in the game throughout the night.

The junior post led all scorers with 22 points.

Frazier finally connected on the Bulldogs' 16th field-goal attempt of the game, but it was her two scores four seconds apart that sent the game into overtime.

With Batavia trailing 31-27, Frazier sliced the lead in half while being fouled in the process.

"Truthfully, I didn't miss the free throw on purpose," Frazier said.

But the ball came right back to Frazier at the foul line, and Frazier forged the first tie of the game with 44 seconds remaining at 31-31 with a six-footer in the lane.

Both teams had chances to win in the last 10 seconds but the respective shots missed.

McIntosh, who finished with 11 points for South Elgin, scored 3 straight points.

"(I) just wanted to play hard for every minute, for every second," McIntosh said.

But Koch, who augmented the Frazier game-high total with 12 points, hit a 3-pointer with 2:17 to play in the extra session.

It would be the final deadlock as Delaney Kelleher hit a one-handed runner in the lane, and free throws gave South Elgin a 39-34.

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