SHG girls fall to Glenbard South, will play for third place
Ryan Mahan Staff Writer @ryanmahanSJR
Mar 1, 2019 at 2:59 PM Mar 1, 2019 at 6:58 PM
NORMAL — What Glen Ellyn Glenbard South High School gave, it took away.
Sacred Heart-Griffin High School led for 22 minutes, but eventually the Glenbard South defense helped the Raiders prevail in a 32-27 victory in the Class 3A state tournament semifinal on Friday in Redbird Arena.
Glenbard South will play Morton in the championship game at 1 p.m. Saturday, while SHG will face LaGrange Park Nazareth in the third-place game at 11 a.m.
The Raiders' defense — anchored by 6-foot-3 senior Maggie Bair, a Drake University commit — shut down the Cyclones' offense.
"I think we got a little overwhelmed with the drive," SHG coach Steve Klunick said. "They were showing us driving lanes, and as we all know, Maggie Bair's a ton. We're not used to playing that size. We seen the driving lanes, we tried to capitalize on them and ... it seemed like she altered a lot more than (three blocks).
"They gave us driving lanes and then just funneled us into the big girl."
SHG's game plan was to deny Bair the ball around the paint. And Victoria Zeigler and Jalen Butler were mostly tasked to front Bair.
"They played hard defense on me, especially in the first half and I kind of wasn't in it mentally," Bair said. "Those guys took me out of the game a little bit. They played good defense, and I had to find ways to get myself open."
Zeigler said her assignment was difficult.
"(Bair is) very aggressive to the lane. You can do as much as you can trying to box her out. She's still a big body; she's still got long arms to get those rebounds," Zeigler said. "So it was a struggle trying to box her out and ... she's a very good drive — she's pretty quick for a big girl."
And what Bair did near the basket defensively, Lauren Cohen did to Sofie Lowis. The sophomore guard hit a pair of 3-pointers in the first quarter as SHG (29-7) took a 14-7 lead. Cohen was then assigned to shadow Lowis every time the Cyclones were on offense.
"I think defensively, Lauren (Cohen) did a great job on (Lowis)," Glenbard South coach Morgan Eufrasio said. "(Lowis) is an outstanding basketball player.
"They got two big 3s on us and then they had the transition buckets, which is something we really talked about with them, and those are momentum switches and we can't have that. We have to control the pace because offensively, we need to slow it down and take good shots, one at a time. If we get in an up-and-down, run-and-gun game, we're in trouble."
The Cyclones' leading scorer, senior Payton Vorreyer, was able to get in the paint, but Bair made it difficult for Vorreyer to finish. She finished with a team-high 12 points on four of 12 shooting.
"I'm more of a driver than a shooter, so I think they recognized that," Vorreyer said. "They showed us the open lane, I did take it every time and once I got there, she was there."
The Cyclones didn't score a field goal in the second quarter and were just 1-for-17 in the middle quarters. SHG was able to outscore Glenbard South (27-7) 3-2 in the second.
"The second quarter was brutal. That's bad basketball," Eufrasio said. "We've got to fix that. That's our goal, to slow down the game and 3-2 is slowing down the game — it may set it back a little bit — but we're slowing it down."
Glenbard South dictated the tempo for the final three quarters.
Bair gave the Raiders the lead for good when she drove baseline and finished with a layup. Gianna Coluzzi then connected on a mid-range jumper to put Glenbard South ahead 24-21.
Addison Scarlette cut the lead to 24-23 when she finished a layup off an entry pass from Zeigler. At 5-8, Scarlette grabbed two offensive rebounds and finished with five and tried to give the Cyclones chances when the offense went cold.
"I just knew we had to get some rebounds from somebody and I decided I wanted to get them," Scarlette said. "Maggie is very, very hard to box out."
Klunick added: "Addison doesn't quit. She just doesn't quit. She's on the boards. She's undersized, but wow."
Contact Ryan Mahan: 788-1546, ryan.mahan@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/RyanMahanSJR.