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Cary-Grove bounces Prairie Ridge

It was uncomfortably quiet for a few minutes in the field house at Grant on Wednesday night.

All Cary-Grove guard Katie Barker could do was sympathize, and empathize.

There on the floor, with less than two minutes left in a Class 4A regional semifinal game, sat Prairie Ridge guard Kelly Klendworth. She wasn't moving, and she was in pain, holding her knee.

"It freaked me out seeing that. I mean, it (stinks). I feel so bad for her because I've been playing with Kelly and against her since seventh grade," Barker said. "There are so many girls now tearing ACLs or (suffering major knee injuries). I just wish her the best of luck and hope that it's nothing major."

Klendworth had been dribbling the ball on the perimeter. Suddenly, she collapsed to the ground, no contact, no awkward movement. Just a buckling knee, followed by a grimacing face.

Klendworth left the game, and eventually left the field house on crutches. Her status is unknown, but it's likely she injured her knee seriously. She was unable to put any weight on it.

Barker knows the feeling. She blew out her right knee as a sophomore. This season, she missed seven games due to a left knee injury that she is gutting out right now so that she can play in her very last state tournament.

The Trojans' leading scorer, Barker returned two games ago and has been a lift, but isn't nearly at 100 percent. In fact, she's scheduled to have surgery on her knee as soon as Cary-Grove's season is over.

The surgery will have to wait a little longer.

Barker, who will play at Ohio University next year, helped the Trojans get a 46-33 victory over Prairie Ridge. They will now face top-seeded Crystal Lake South on Friday at Grant for the regional championship.

No. 3 seed Cary-Grove, which improves to 13-15, has lost to Crystal Lake South twice already this season.

"I'm just trying to do what I can, trying to help my team as much as I can," said Barker, who scored 11 points on three 3-pointers. "I have faith in my teammates and when they need me to step up, I'm going to try to do that."

Candace Cunningham also stepped up for Cary-Grove. She scored a game-high 17 points and was aggressive in attacking the basket. She drew all kinds of fouls and hit 7 of 10 free throws.

"We had a really good game plan that we worked on at practice and we also played really good defense," Cunningham said. "And it's really nice to have (Barker) back. She's really good at screening and getting people open and we all did a good job of getting our shots off."

Cary-Grove opened the game with a 10-0 run but Prairie Ridge (18-9) scored the next 10 points to even the score at 10-10 at the end of the first quarter. The Wolves then took a 24-22 lead into the locker room at halftime, thanks to 7 points in the second quarter from Klendworth.

"She (Klendworth) is in a lot of pain right now," said head coach Rob Baker, who led Prairie Ridge to its first conference title this season. "You know, Kelly is the winningest player in Prairie Ridge girls basketball history. She's played four years of varsity basketball. We got everything turned around when she was here and then to see her go down like that in the final minutes was really tough.

"We've had two (knee injuries) now this season. We've had other injuries, sicknesses, more stuff (than normal). It's been par for the course this season. These girls have been through so much and have fought through. They fought through being down 10-0 tonight and came back. We just ran out of gas and it was a tough night."

Cary-Grove pulled away in the third quarter, outscoring Prairie Ridge 15-4. Cunningham led the way with 6 points in the period. The Trojans then held Prairie Ridge to just 5 points in the fourth quarter.

"We had some people step up who don't normally do that, like Olivia (Miller), who drove down the lane a couple of times for baskets," said Cary-Grove coach Rod Saffert, who also got 10 points out of Katie Sowa. "Candace (Cunningham) has been playing out of her mind the last 10 to 15 games.

"With Katie out, that really helped Candace step up her game. Alli Josefowicz is back after being out two months with a (broken) collarbone. Now that we're all back together, that changes things. We knew our record was not indicative of how good we are. We think we're playing our best basketball right now."

CL South 47, Grant 46: Chanel Fanter scored 22 points and Kiana Clark had 12 points and 8 steals as the top-seeded Gators (21-8) got past No. 5 Grant. Anna Sevcik added 9 points and 6 rebounds for Crystal Lake South (21-8).

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