Geneva's comeback falls short

Geneva coach Sarah Meadows called it a good loss.

After leading the Vikings to back-to-back Class 4A state championships, the Vikings have become accustomed to winning big games.

But Thursday's game against Mother McAuley was a rare loss for the Vikings.

Mother McAuley rode a strong first quarter, a relentless full-court pressure and solid guard play to a 48-44 win over the Vikings in the quarterfinals of the 10th Annual Montini Tournament.

The Mighty Macs (15-0) received a game-high 22 points from Grace Hynes and nine points from Jenna Badali to knock off the two-time defending champs. The Vikings (9-3) were held to 12 points in the first half, but roared back to score 32 in the final 16 minutes.

"We're a young team and learning and growing," Meadows said. "I'm very happy with the growth we had in this game. Overall, I'm happy with this game. It's still a loss, and I'm the biggest competitor there is and hate losing, but for this team, I feel like we learned a lot about ourselves and we competed and could have won this game."

Junior forward Lindsay Blackmore sparked the comeback with her strong play in the paint. She finished with 19 points and blocked three shots.

"We love and live for these games," Blackmore said. "Definitely for the postseason, this game will give us more experience with the competitive (aspect) and big crowd like today. We eliminated our turnovers in the second half and turned it around and got some points up and that made the game close."

The Vikings made two shots and committed five turnovers in the first quarter. Mother McAuley broke open the game with 10 straight points to seize an 13-5 lead early in the second quarter.

Geneva struggled during the first half handling the Mighty Macs' active pressure defense, committing six turnovers in the second quarter.

"Our press is a little unorthodox for (teams), and our kids play so well together as a unit and made good reads," said Mother McAuley coach Ashley Luke Clanton, a former All-American and three-time Daily Herald All-Area captain at Waubonsie Valley. "We had good movement."

Senior Cassidy Navigato, who buried three 3s for 11 points, ignited Geneva's comeback with five straight points in a two-possession sequence to cut the deficit to 28-19 midway through the third.

Blackmore hit a 3 and added a layup to help the Vikings slice the margin to 39-31 by the end of the quarter. The Vikings, though, hit another cold spell in the fourth, failing to score a basket on five straight possessions. Blackmore and Katie Montgomery hit 3s on the final two trips down the court.

"We knew they were going to jump and run that press and we had to be composed to handle it," Meadows said. "I thought we struggled early in the game handling it. But I thought by the end, we had it and we were getting layups. We talked at half that we had to come out and be more aggressively offensively. We were standing around looking too much. We were more composed with the press break in the second half."