Kim sparks Palatine to MSL West win over Conant
When senior guard Sam Locasio fired home a 3-pointer to give Conant a 31-24 lead with 6:10 left in Friday night's Mid-Suburban League girls basketball game, Palatine didn't blink an eye.
"Honestly, I wasn't worried at all," said Pirates junior guard Megan Kim. "We feel like we have a strong team that has been working very hard at practice and we just felt we're going to pull it out,"
Not only did the Pirates pull it out with a game-ending 12-0 run, Kim pulled off her career-high 13 points and had a splendid all-around game to help lift the visitors to a 36-31 decision.
After senior Madi Stark's 3-pointer followed by her steal and layup gave Palatine a 34-31 lead with 2:13 left, it was Kim's 2 free throws with 14.5 seconds left that sealed the deal for Palatine (6-4, 1-1).
"She's a trooper," said Palatine coach Bill LePage about Kim's big effort that included a 3-pointer that got her team to within 24-21. "She plays hard and does everything we ask her to do. This morning, she came in before school and we talked about her role and what we expected of her tonight because everyone knows Madi Stark is our No. 1 player. But Megan Kim really stepped up, distributed the ball well, hit some big free throws, got a couple of steals and easy buckets. It was great. But it was a total team effort."
The team effort included 12 points from Stark, 5 from junior Megan VanBrunt and 3 apiece from senior Allie Henning, whose 3-pointer started the 12-0 run to close the game, and sophomore Frankie Henderson.
Henderson got the assist on one of Kim's layups that was the result of a great play by Stark near half-court. Stark made a diving swipe of the ball to prevent it from going out of bounds and pushed it ahead to Henderson, who raced up to the ball and then flipped it to Kim for the easy bucket.
"Madi is an amazing player," said Kim, who was 4 of 5 from the free-throw line.
"Our coach knew we could beat them but we just had to be strong enough," Stark said. " That's the attitude we had in the fourth quarter."
Locascio led Conant (4-5, 1-1) with 15 points (3 3-pointers), while freshman Aria Mazza hit a pair of 3-pointers for 6 points.
"Sam played great," said Conant coach Todd Strauch. "I thought she did a really good job of moving the ball, shooting open shots and going to the basket to get to the line more than she has all season.
"We just had a few breakdowns late, defensively. We didn't stop the ball like we should have on baseline drives, gave up some open 3-pointers and our offense just struggled the last six minutes. We stopped doing what we were doing earlier in the game. The ball movement stopped and the players' movement stopped a little and that hit us. And Palatine played hard and they knocked down shots late."