Matulevicius nails game-winner in Montini's thriller over Geneva

Call her crafty or a determined driver, Montini junior guard Victoria Matulevicius has the uncanny ability to score around the rim in the tightest windows.

Her coach can't always explain it.

On Saturday, neither could Matulevicius in trying to recall her biggest basket.

"I don't know what happened. I kind of blacked out in a way," Matulevicius said. "I just drove to the basket, and the ball went in."

Matulevicius spun around her defender at the top of the key, drove down the left side of the lane and tossed up a running layup between two defenders with 4.6 seconds left. Montini, which lost a nine-point lead in the final three minutes, knocked off Class 4A No. 1-ranked Geneva in a 44-42 thriller on Matulevicius' game-winner at the 33rd Coach Kipp Hoopsfest at Montini.

Montini (16-4), ranked No. 6 in Class 3A, erased an eight-point halftime deficit and snapped Geneva's 11-game winning streak - thanks in large part to the heroics of Matulevicius, who scored a team-high 16 points.

"I practice driving in practice, and I work on my moves and bring them to the game," Matulevicius said. "I knew I just wanted our team to win, and I wanted to show people that our team can do big things. This win proved that."

Indeed, Montini has beaten three top Class 4A teams - Lyons, Barrington and Geneva - over the last 16 days. Matulevicius scored a career-high 29 last Saturday in the win over defending state runner-up Barrington. This time, she came up huge - and redeemed herself after missing the front end of a one-and-one with a minute left that set the stage for Caroline Madden's tying layup for Geneva with 40.5 seconds left.

"She is a gamer," Montini coach Shannon Spanos said of Matulevicius. "She is crafty, and a determined driver, always looking to get to the rim and finish. Sometimes she finishes, and we don't know how it goes in. She is a special player."

Geneva (16-3), which last lost to Barrington on Dec. 3, led 27-19 at halftime, but after a four-point third quarter found itself down 42-33 with 3:46 left after Matulevicius slithered in for a driving score.

But the Vikings erased it with a stunning 9-0 run, twice scoring off turnovers. Madden, who held Montini star Shannon Blacher to six points on 2-for-9 shooting, scored just two baskets herself - but they were big ones. Her steal in the backcourt and score with a 1:16 left cut the margin to two, and then her driving layup tied it.

"She doesn't stop," Geneva coach Sarah Meadows said of Madden. "Both of those kids, Caroline and [fellow Geneva guard] Rilee [Hasegawa], we say it all the time. They don't blow up the stat sheet, but if those kids aren't on the court we're a completely different team."

Montini jumped out to an early 12-4 lead, five different girls scoring in the first quarter, but Geneva turned things around on the strength of posts Cassidy Arni and Lauren Slagle.

Slagle, a Grand Valley State recruit, scored 13 points in the first half and Arni, a Wisconsin-Parkside commit, had nine, her 3-pointer sending Geneva into halftime ahead 27-19.

But the two combined for just seven points in the second half, two in the third quarter.

"We switched up our defense a little bit on Slagle, because she was killing us," Spanos said. "We were trying to deny her the ball and take her out of the game."

Montini's Eleanor Helm, who had four assists and four rebounds in her first extended minutes since returning from an ankle injury a week ago, banked in a 3-pointer to end the third quarter with her team ahead 35-31. Hers was one of the many contributions that made Montini's win possible. Peyton Farrell had eight points and Shea Carver seven rebounds.

"Ellie came back tonight in a big way," Spanos said. "I told the girls I was so happy with their no-quit attitude. They were down at half, they came back, and they gave up just four points in the third quarter. And then it almost seemed like we were trying to give it away. Geneva pressed, and kudos to them for speeding us up."

The Vikings perhaps waited a bit long to turn that pressure loose, lessons learned from January that can help come February and March.

"We were a little soft and stale in the third quarter, and as coaches that might have been on us," Meadows said. "Maybe we needed to put that press back on to get the kids going, because we feed off that. There's some stuff we have to evaluate. That's why we want to play games like this."