Burlington Central headed to sectional finals

ROCHELLE - Much has been written and ballyhooed about Burlington Central's girls basketball team having three 1,000-point scorers and all the offensive numbers the Rockets have put up as a team the past four years.

But when it comes to crunchtime in the postseason, no one knows better how important defense is than the Rockets.

Central's stifling defense was on display again here Monday night and it, coupled with another efficient offensive game, catapulted BC to a 51-39 upset of No. 4 ranked Rockford Lutheran in the Class 3A Rochelle sectional semifinals.

"We really pride ourselves on our defense and I thought we executed the game plan to perfection tonight," said Central coach Mark Smith.

The No. 10 Rockets (25-4) will seek their third sectional title in the past four years at 7 p.m. Thursday when they take on Rockford Boylan (23-9). Boylan rolled to a 55-33 win over St. Francis in Monday's first semifinal.

Thursday's winner will move on to the Bureau Valley supersectional next Monday to play either defending state champion Morton or Washington, which each won at the Galesburg sectional Monday.

For a time, it looked like Central's win over Lutheran (28-3) was going to be as lopsided as the evening's opening game. The Rockets never trailed and the game was only tied once and that at 2-2.

Senior Sam Pryor, who finished with a game-high 19 points, nailed four 3-pointers in the first half and senior Becca Gerke scored 5 of her 9 points as BC led 26-17 at halftime. The second quarter was when both teams turned up the defense, with the final 5:14 of the period going scoreless.

"Everyone really came out ready to play tonight," said Pryor, who battled through illness to play all but about 10 seconds. "We all know it's a one-game thing now."

With their defense in lockdown mode the Rockets, who forced 15 Lutheran turnovers, turned on the jets offensively again in the third quarter, rolling out to as much as a 41-22 lead with 20 seconds left in the period after back-to-back drives to the lane by senior Kayla Ross, who not only scored 12 points but held Lutheran junior Kailyn Strawbridge to just 3 points in the first three quarters. Ross added 5 steals and 4 assists as BC shot 18 of 41 for the game and outrebounded the Crusaders 27-25, led by 6 boards from senior guard Sam Cruz.

"Coming into the postseason we knew defense would win these games," said Ross, who took a hard foul early in the fourth quarter, hit the floor and went out of the game but came back 27 seconds later.

"We all know what we're capable of and we know defense wins championships. If we keep playing defense like we are we're unstoppable."

Down 19, Lutheran had a run left in it and the Crusaders stole the momentum with a 12-0 spurt that started at the end of the third and culminated when 6-2 NIU-bound Abby Woollacott (8 points) scored with 5:28 to play to make it 41-34 game.

That's as close as Lutheran would get, though, as Ross and Pryor went 6-for-7 from the free-throw line down the stretch and senior Shelby Holt (8 points) hit a big bucket to keep the lead at 11, and the Rockets were able to run enough clock to keep the Crusaders at bay.

"One, two, three years ago we wouldn't have had that patience to milk the clock like we did tonight," Smith said. "We just did a great job with that. (Lutheran) made the run in the fourth quarter but we withstood it."