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Maine West's Dugalic shows class with tweet to team that broke win streak

When you've won nearly 100 games in your high school career, losing for the first time in 45 games isn't exactly going to make your day.

But Angela Dugalic managed to make the day of the Montini girls basketball team and coach Jason Nichols.

She sent a classy tweet just hours after Nichol's Broncos snapped Maine West's 44-game winning streak (which was the longest in the state at the time) on Saturday at the Chicagoland Showcase Invitational at Fremd High School.

Here's the tweet:

Hello. I didn't find you after the game but I just wanted to tell you great game. Although it didn't turn out the way I wanted, I had a lot of fun playing your team because we don't get a lot of competition. Good luck the rest of the season and hopefully we'll see each other at state on the floor again.”

Dugalic did her best to help prevent the 41-40 loss despite playing most of the second half with 4 fouls. The 6-foot-4 Oregon recruit scored 17 points and grabbed 9 rebounds.

Warriors fourth-year coach Kim de Marigny, who owns a 103-7 record, was hardly surprised by Dugalic's gratuitous tweet.

“Angela is indeed a classy young lady,” de Marigny said. “She's a competitor for sure but we lost and she accepted it and congratulated her opponents. She's the real deal.”

Tweet II: Speaking of tweeting, Schaumburg's twitter perfectly captured the winning basket when the Saxons edged Conant 42-39 in last week's Mid-Suburban West opener in Hoffman Estates.

Go to @Siegie_Saxon and you'll find the video of senior guard Katie Smith connecting on a 3-pointer from near the top of the key just before the final buzzer sounds.

For the record: Maine West's 44-game winning streak tied Peoria for the 12th longest streak in state girls basketball history.

It is the longest since Annawan won 55 straight from 2016 to 2018 and Whitney Young's streak of 47 from 2011 and 2012.

Maine West still holds the state record when Derril Kipp's Warriors won 65 consecutive games from Nov. 1987 to Feb. 13 1989.

That 1980s streak, just like the current team, included a 35-0 state championship season.

Officials honored: Basketball officials Joe Fritsch of Bensenville, Ron Ritter of Westchester and Bill DePue of Palatine, all familiar faces over the years in the Mid-Suburban League, will be inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame on May 2, 2020 at Illinois State University.

Mid-Suburban League officials assignment director Fred Allman was at Palatine High School last Friday night when the three inductees were all in action.

Fritsch and Ritter worked the Fremd-Palatine girls basketball game while DePue worked the boys game that night. They were honored before their games.

Fritsch officiated Class AA girls state finals in 2004, 2005 and 2007.

Ritter worked the Class 3A/4A girls state finals in 2016, 2017 and 2019 while DePue worked the Class 3A/4A boys state finals in 2013, 2014 and 2016.

DePue was selected as the IHSA Boys Basketball Official of the Year in 2018 while Ritter was the IHSA Girls Basketball Official of the Year in 2019.

Grow the Game: Basketball shootouts, which Jim O'Boye was one of the first to start back in the 1980s with his Martin Luther King girls event, are becoming the norm.

The newest one will be held Jan. 2 through 4 at Glenbard West High School in Glen Ellyn.

The inaugural Grow the Game Tournament and Shootout is a unique and important event highlighting 13 girls basketball programs all led by female head coaches.

Two of them are former stars in the Mid-Suburban League — Hersey hall of famer Mary Fendley (Rolling Meadows) and Stevenson coach Ashley Sanstead (Buffalo Grove), who also starred at Illinois State.

Their two teams will meet in the event on Jan. 4

The majority of games will also be officiated by female referees.

The event was established with the purpose of celebrating and empowering girls and women in basketball.

The Grow the Game Tournament will raise awareness about the importance of equality and giving all girls and women the opportunity to lead, compete, collaborate, and honor one another through the game of basketball.

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