Maine West finds fast start 'refreshing'
NORMAL - Rockton Hononegah never had a chance Friday night. Dylan Van Fleet made sure of it.
Maine West started fast in Friday's Class 4A semifinal and never let up, advancing to Saturday night's state championship game with a 56-32 victory at Redbird Arena. The Warriors will face Mother McAuley, a 48-38 winner over Benet in the first semifinal.
Just more than four minutes into the game, Maine West led 19-3. Van Fleet scored 17 points in the first quarter, plus 2 assists. She finished with a game-best 23 points and 5 assists.
Not bad for a kid who averages 11.4 points a game.
"It was fun," Van Fleet said. "I was just very happy that I was able to get those chances and that I was able to convert them and then able to look for my teammates as well on other plays."
"She's quite a performer at times," Maine West coach Kim De Marigny added. "She's relentless, so she has a nose for the ball, she wants to get it, she wants to score. It's very difficult to stop her when she's got that mentality, especially when she's got this supporting cast with her."
Van Fleet took advantage of all the attention Hononegah's defense paid to Rachel Kent and Angela Dugalic.
"We thought as a staff that we didn't want those two to beat us," Hononegah coach Randy Weibel said. "And I think they had 7 points at halftime. And they needed other people to step up, and they did."
Kent totaled 7 points to take over the No. 2 spot on Maine West's all-time scoring list. Dugalic had 11 points, and Reyes added 10.
"It is refreshing, I suppose, to have different people who can score," De Marigny said. "You never know whose night it's going to be. ... I don't know if you can cover each one of us completely. You can cover some of us partially, some of us completely, I suppose, but then there's five of us instead of just the two that they tried to shut down."
Maine West led 23-5 at the end of the first quarter and by as much as 33 in the third.
"I think it was very refreshing, again," Reyes said, making "refreshing" the team's word of the night. "I think it was very fun because you look around because ... you think you can guard one player but there's other players that have the same mentality of attack, attack, attack, and that's our mentality this year. So it was very fun, the first quarter. And the rest."
Hononegah led just once, at 3-2.
"They got out to a great start and all you can do at that point is keep your head up and keep playing, try to chip at the lead point by point," said
Hononegah senior and Marquette recruit Jordan King. "Just work at it possession by possession. You just have to keep playing and forget about the play that just happened and keep going with a positive mind."
King led Hononegah with 20 points and 8 rebounds.
"We just knew we had to focus on her because she's a really good player and she scores a lot of their team points, as you can see tonight," Kent said.
It was a much better state semifinal for Maine West than last year's, a 58-41 loss to eventual champion Geneva.
"Last year, I want to remember it just because I don't want to have that feeling again," Dugalic said. "It's not a good feeling. This is a good feeling, and I like this feeling, so I want this feeling for our last game as well."