Maine West's four-peat quest at Dundee-Crown still burning bright

The candles are still burning for Maine West's girls basketball team, which is looking to become only the second team to win four straight championships at the Komaromy Holiday Classic at Dundee-Crown High School.

And when the Warriors' dynamic inside-outside duo of Angela Dugalic and Dylan VanFleet are blowing out the candles on their 18th birthdays this Sunday, they'll hope the following day to be celebrating a perfect 12-0 record in their four years in Carpentersville.

But VanFleet warned 'one game at a time' after Friday's 68-46 triumph over Barrington in the quarterfinals.

The Warriors (13-1) will face Stevenson (9-5) in Saturday's 6:30 p.m. semifinal.

And they'll be looking for a better performance.

"It was kind of an ugly win," VanFleet said. "We definitely could have played better. But Barrington is a good team, for sure. Hopefully, Ang and I can leave this tournament with a good birthday present but it's one game at a time."

The Warriors, who had a 44-game winning streak snapped a few weeks ago by Montini, ended Barrington's nine-game winning streak.

"Our kids played hard and I thought gutsy," said Barrington coach Babbi Barreiro. "We are trying to get them to understand they can compete with anyone when they come to play and I thought that showed for a good part of the game."

For the past three seasons, the Warriors happened to win the D-C title on the same day as VanFleet and Dugalic's birthdays.

On Friday, they happened to each score 24 points while winning for the tenth straight time on the D-C floor.

Fenwick won five straight titles at D-C from 2004 to 2008 under coach Dave Power.

Fourth-year Warriors coach Kim de Marigny also has never lost in Carpentersville.

"It was an ugly win but we'll take it," de Marigny said. "Barrington was really aggressive. They executed things well. They had a game plan and went out and did what they needed to do."

West jumped ahead 8-2 but Barrington (9-5) got to within 15-12 on a layup by freshman Sophie Swanson with 43 seconds left in the first quarter.

The Warriors led 33-24 at half and pulled away to a 43-26 lead with 3:01 left in the third quarter.

A 3-pointer by Barington's Taylor Thompson closed the deficit to 51-39 but that's as close as the Fillies would get.

de Marigny liked what she saw from her bench.

"We had some bench players come in and do the things we asked," she said. " "We wanted Mahogony Shaw to put a body on Taylor Thompson and she really tried to do what we asked. She played defense and she made a wide-open shot (17-footer) late in the game.

"Angelina Ocampo also came in and did a nice job. This was a good game for us to see who else can contribute this season."

Dugalic led the Warriors with 11 rebounds while Lena Albo grabbed four and Brianna Hernandez had three.

Thompson paced Barrington with 15 points and 7 rebounds. Swanson added 13 points and grabbed 8 rebounds. Shanna Turczynski added 11 points and sophomore Laura Mahlum chipped in 7 points with 5 rebounds.

"Credit Maine West," Barreiro said. "Honestly, they created turnovers and we shot ourselves in the foot a little with that. We turned the ball over 40 percent of this game and it's hard to beat anyone doing that, let alone Maine West.

"That's a good team but we did some good things and we're going to build on that. You want to play good teams and I definitely thought we competed with them. We gave up a few too many easy shots in the fourth quarter."