Crystal Lake Central upsets Dundee-Crown
Utilizing an effective ball press, fourth-seeded Crystal Lake Central forced 24 Dundee-Crown turnovers in upsetting the top-seeded Chargers 48-39 in the championship game of the Class 4A Cary-Grove regional Thursday night.
The game was delayed 15 minutes because of a leak in the main gym and the last minute of the third quarter and the fourth quarter was played in the auxiliary gym.
The Tigers (17-12) advance to the Belvidere North sectional to play Hononegah, a 45-31 winner over Hampshire in the title game of the Hononegah regional.
D-C ends the season 23-9.
"I don't want to discredit Central (Crystal Lake) because they played a great game and played hard, but we underperformed tonight," said D-C coach Sarah Miller. "We are very disappointed as a program. Tonight served as a life lesson for our team. The returning players should be stronger because of this."
Central coach Derek Crabill was impressed with his teams defensive effort. It was the Tigers' first regional since 2009.
"This was by far our best defensive effort of the season," said the Tiger coach. "We couldn't have drawn it up any better. We made a few adjustments defensively at halftime. Offensively we handled their pressure pretty well."
Leading 17-12 at halftime, the Tigers seized control of the game in the third quarter. Led by 6 points each by Emma Flemming Megan Wozniak the Tigers started the third quarter on a 15-4 run and led 32-16 with 3 minutes left.
The Chargers didn't quit and a 3-pointer by Katelynn Skibinski at the buzzer sliced the Tigers' lead to 37-27 after 3 quarters.
The Tigers squashed any hope of a Charger comeback by scoring the first 9 points of the fourth quarter to take their biggest lead of the game 46-27 with 5:22 left in the game.
Corrine Hamill scored 6 points and Flemming had a basket as the Tigers basically put the game on ice.
The Chargers' first points of the quarter came on a 3-pointer by Gianine Boado with 3:37 left in the game to make the score 46-30.
D-C made a valiant comeback and got within 46-37 on a 3 by Payton Schmidt with 33 seconds left.
Alyssa Crenshaw led the Chargers with 13 points, 11 rebounds and 3 blocked shots. Schmidt and Boado scored 8 each with a pair of 3s while Skibinski scored 7 with a trey.
Fleming with a pair of 3s led the Tigers with 15.
"I have coached a lot of these kids since fifth and sixth grade so we have a family atmosphere," said Crabill. "I am so proud of these kids. They played a great game tonight and have had a great season."