St. Viator rolls in regional semifinals

For years, Harvard has been the final stop for the Union Pacific Railroad/northwest line.

Unfortunately for the local high school's girls basketball team, St. Viator made Arlington Heights the final stop for the Hornets' 2018-19 season.

Hosting its own Class 3A regional, top-seeded St. Viator (22-8) untracked No. 17 Harvard (2-23) early and kept chugging to a 59-28 triumph in Wednesday's semifinal.

The Lions will face No. 8 Richmond-Burton (13-14) in Thursday's championship.

Viator's top conductor, coach Jason Raymond, will be back on board after the physical education/health teacher missed Wednesday's game due to parent/teacher conferences at his Highland Middle School in Libertyville.

That put another middle school P.E./health teacher, Todd Zasadil, in charge and he engineered the Lions to the wire-to-wire win.

"He did great," said Lions senior guard Elise Horbach. "He does a lot of the subbing along with coach Raymond so he knows our personnel."

Zasadil was able to do plenty of subbing Wednesday as the Lions took charge 25-9 midway through the second quarter and then had an impressive third quarter outscoring the Hornets 27-0 for a 54-13 lead.

"We just went out, did our thing and never let up," Horbach said. "Now we've got a quick turnaround (for Thursday's game)"

It was a quick 8-2 lead for the Lions as freshman Joy Bergstrom started the game with a steal and layup, followed by 3-pointers from Emma Morrisey and Horbach.

Bergstrom wound up leading the Lions with 12 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 4 steals.

Freshman Nora Ahram added 10 points, 4 steals and 2 assists while senior Sam DeJulio had 8 points and 2 assists.

"We just tried to do what we do best," said Zasadil, a former three-sport athlete at Downers Grove South who teaches at Stevenson Middle School in Melrose Park. "That's the most important thing for us - to play our game and make teams play at our tempo and our pace."

Senior Natalie Krause (8 points) kept the Hornets on their toes, as she hit a pair of 3-pointers in the big third quarter run. Sophomore teammate Keely McClellan also had a 3-pointer in the fourth quarter

"We were getting the shots we wanted," added Zasadil, who is in his fourth year assisting the program. "We didn't hit all of them but we know if we are getting the shots we want, they'll start to fall with our shooting and depth."

The Lions hope to stay on track in Thursday's title match when Raymond returns.

Zasadil will be back in his assistant role with a 1-0 career record as head coach.

"It was a good opportunity," said Zasadil, who would one day like to be a head coach. "It was fun."

The Lions hope the fun continues in the Cahill gym on Thursday.