A fantastic finish for Wheaton North
Sophomore guard Ellie Hubbard will remember Friday night's girls basketball victory for a long time. So will her Wheaton North teammates.
Hubbard swished three free throws with 2.1 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter to send the game into overtime, where the Falcons won 48-44.
Against cross-town rival Wheaton Warrenville South.
At home in front of a packed gym.
To remain undefeated.
After the Falcons (9-0, 4-0 DuKane Conference) trailed 19-2 in the second quarter.
Despite battling the stomach flu all week.
"M.J. flu game, baby," Falcons senior Nikki Baird said of Hubbard, referring to Michael Jordan in the NBA Finals while their teammates celebrated in the room behind them. "That's all I have to say."
Trailing 39-36, Hubbard turned and looked for a 3-pointer from about 27 feet when she was fouled, sending her to the free-throw line for three shots.
"Excited, definitely," Hubbard said. "Nervous, definitely. But you know we practice it all the time, and I had faith."
So did Baird.
"Knocking down those free throws, I was not even nervous," Baird said, high-fiving Hubbard and praising Hubbard's work ethic. "Nothing but net on all three of those, that's my girl. That's my girl."
Hubbard's free throws tied the game for the first time, and the Falcons took their first lead in overtime. Junior Leeya Zander scored off a Baird assist, and sophomore Julia Simon followed that with another basket for a 4-point lead.
Tigers senior guard Mira Emma made a pair of free throws to cut the lead to 2, but Baird made her third 3-pointer of the game, all of them from well behind the arc.
"It felt like the girls should have been rewarded for their effort tonight," Tigers coach Rob Kroehnke said. "I thought they played unbelievable. It was fun. It really was."
Baird finished with a game-high 15 points and 8 rebounds despite not hitting a field goal until the fourth quarter. Hubbard finished with 8 points. Sophomore guard Julia Simon scored 13 points, 11 of them after halftime, but it was her defense that coach Dave Eaton said was the key to the Falcons' comeback.
"Defensively, she turned the game," Eaton said. "She kept stealing the ball from them and creating. For us to score we had to get into transition, and you're not going to do that off, obviously, made baskets."
"My goal was just to do it for the team," said Simon, who has several Division I scholarship offers for soccer. "I knew we were behind and we needed an extra steal, an extra point."
WW South sprinted ahead to start the game, leading 11-2 after one quarter and 19-2 on an Emma 3-pointer early in the second quarter.
"I've got kids who are the most amazing kids in the world," Kroehnke said. "I would go to war with them anytime. I don't need five-star recruits. I like kids who work really, really, really hard. And when you work really hard and you shoot well, you get that early run."
The Tigers led by 10 at halftime, but the Falcons were just warming up.
"We told them at halftime ... we are actually in the place where we want to be. The momentum is starting to swing," said Eaton, whose team gained extra momentum for next week's holiday tournament at Wheaton North.
"At halftime we had a great talk," Simon added, "and it was all about, we can take a step back and let them win or that we can go and just do what we do and play North Side basketball. And that's what we did."
Mackenzie Stebbins led the Tigers (7-5, 2-2) with 12 points and 5 assists. Emma scored 11 and Kylie Ruggles 10. The Tigers will get a chance to put this loss behind them when they play in the State Farm Classic beginning Wednesday night in Bloomington-Normal.