Grow the Game draws rave reviews from Hersey's Fendley

Not too often are you going to find an Illinois high school regular-season girls basketball game featuring a pair of coaches with almost 2,000 wins combined.

But that's what happened when the organizers of the Grow the Game matched hall of famers Dorothy Gaters of Marshall and Tanya Johnson of Zion-Benton last Saturday at Glenbard West High School.

There are more and more girls basketball shootout/tournaments on the landscape but this one had a unique touch.

It featured 14 girls teams all coached by women and all games were officiated by females.

Hersey hall of fame coach Mary Fendley was the lone representative from the Mid-Suburban League and she couldn't have been prouder to have her Huskies compete in Glen Ellyn.

"It started out last spring with a couple of conference calls and I was lucky enough to be on a few those," said Fendley, a winner of than 450 games herself.

Fendley said that former Mother McAuley coach Ashley Luke, who is now guiding the girls' team at Norcross High near Atlanta (GA.), and former Whitney Young coach Corry Carter Irvin helped spearhead the move for the tourney.

"And then Kristi Faulkner (Glenbard West), Teri Rodgers (New Trier) and Cara Boyle (St. Ignatius) really ran with it and just got a lot done," Fendley said. "After some initial conversations in the spring, they put in a lot of work to make this happen."

Rodgers even ran a similar shootout in the summer.

"We (Hersey) took part in that and it's just been a lot of fun," Fendley said.

While it was held at the picturesque Glenbard West campus last weekend, perhaps next season it will have a new home.

"We've talked about rotating it," said Fendley, whose Huskies defeated Stevenson 57-45.

Zion-Benton was a 34-30 winner over Marshall.

Luke even came back to Illinois with her Georgia squad and defeated Glenbard West 37-34 in the game prior to the Hersey/Stevenson match.

Streak snapped: When coach Kim de Marigny's 16-1 Maine West Warriors defeated Geneva at last week's Chicagoland Invitational at Benet, it snapped a three-game losing streak against the Vikings.

After falling to Geneva in the 2018 Class 4A state semifinals in Normal, Maine West had won 44 of its last 47 games with all three losses to Geneva.

West showdown: Someone will hold sole possession of first place in the Mid-Suburban West by late Friday night.

State-ranked Fremd (12-4) will host Barrington (12-6) at 7:30 p.m. in Palatine. Both teams are 3-0 in the West.

The two teams combine for no less than four future collegiate basketball players.

The Vikings have three Division-I recruits - Emily Klaczek (Alabama-Birmingham), Olivia Hill (Bowling Green) and Ruthie Montella (William & Mary). Vikings junior Grace LaBarge has received a Division-I offer.

Barrington senior Taylor Thompson will play at D-II Missouri-St. Louis. Fillies guard Sophie Swanson is one of the top freshmen in the area.

Fremd comes into the game with the current longest MSL winning streak. Coach Dave Yates' Vikings have reeled off 16 straight wins since a loss to Palatine two years ago.

Barrington coach Babbi Barreiro's Fillies won nine straight games earlier this season.

"Fremd has a lot of weapons and we have to defend effectively," Barreiro said. "We have to play as a team and make sure we play together within the offense."

Coach Kipp's Hoopfest: When Jim O'Boye started his first girls shootout at Northwestern University in 1991, he never thought it would grow into a two-day event over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.

But that's exactly what the 30th edition offers on Jan. 18 and Jan. 20 at Willowbrook High School in Villa Park.

The 'Original' girls high school shootout is at Willowbrook for the 25th year.

As usual, this year's event is loaded with top tier players and has expanded by two games from a year ago with the addition of Timothy Christian (Elmhurst) which is co-hosting with its boys event now in its second year.

There will be 34 top teams from Illinois and Indiana competing in the 17-game format.

Many of the teams feature future college and professional players, including Maine West's 6-foot-4 Angela Dugalic and Naperville North's 6-0 junior Gretta Kampschroeder, considered top players in their classes.

The event was renamed two years ago for the late Maine West hall of fame coach Derril Kipp.

Kipp is largely regarded as the 'father' of girls high school basketball in Illinois and the Midwest for his tireless efforts to promote and grow the popularity of the game beginning in the 1980s.

Among the great players who have competed in the shootout are Candace Parker (Naperville Central/Tennessee), Tamika Catchings (Stevenson/Tennessee), Jewel Lloyd (Niles West/Notre Dame), Cappie Pondexter (Marshall/Rutgers) and Skylar Diggins (South Bend Washington (IN)/Notre Dame).

Tickets, good for all day, can be purchased at the door ($7 for adults, $5 for students, $3 for senior citizens).

Games start at 9 a.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. on Monday.

Representing the Northwest suburbs will be Maine West, Fremd and Rolling Meadows.

The Warriors face Northwestern (Kokomo, IN) at 3 p.m. on Saturday and Fremd tips off later at 7:30 p.m. against Marist.

On Monday, Meadows meets Montini at 4 p.m.