Girls Basketball
Four years ago, Claire Jakubicek was asked to write down her long-term goals, and the then-fourth grader scrawled “to play Division I basketball” on a sheet of paper.
JOHNSBURG – There was something about watching her younger sister on the basketball court last winter that made Kara DiTusa nostalgic.
HAMPSHIRE – Karla Vietinghoff tucked three basketballs under her arms and carefully walked to a corner of Hampshire’s basketball court.
Three area girls basketball standouts enjoyed a proper send-off Saturday.
CRYSTAL LAKE – Last week Nelle Youel put her sweat-soaked T-shirt on a scale.
CARY – Paige Lincicum pulled at the bottom of her reversible Cary-Grove basketball practice penny, cocked her head and thought for a moment.
Ed Haugens, who stepped down after last season as the girls basketball head coach at Jacobs, has accepted the varsity girls basketball coaching job at Hampshire and will lead the Whip-Purs during the 2010-11 season, District 300 announced Wednesday.
Keith Chuipek was named Jacobs girls basketball coach Friday, allowing him to return to the program with which he began his coaching career.
HEBRON – Johnsburg’s Danielle Slivka started the game like she was competing in track, not basketball.
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Another local girls basketball coach in charge of a lauded program has resigned.
At no point this season did things get easier for Cary-Grove’s girls basketball team.
Player of the Year: Melissa Dixon, Johnsburg
Hampshire junior Jessie Van Dorin, a day after winning the Class 3A title in the IHSA Three-Point Showdown, finished third Saturday in the Queen of the Hill finals at Redbird Arena in Normal.
NORMAL – Whitney Adams scored 20 points, and Alison Seberger added 18 as Montini beat Hillcrest, 64-53, in the Class 3A title game Saturday at Redbird Arena for its first IHSA girls basketball championship.
Ask Melissa Dixon what she would like to improve about her game, and she does not hesitate.
During the girls basketball postseason, a prediction gained some credibility, and it likely will not come as a shock.
Johnsburg’s Megan Lopez and her teammates will be at Illinois State University’s Redbird Arena in Normal today, but not in the capacity they had hoped.
ELGIN – With every second that ticked off the clock, another Johnsburg girls basketball player put her head in her hands.
JOHNSBURG – Johnsburg’s boys basketball team continued its strong finish to the season with a 66-44 Fox Valley Conference Fox division win against Woodstock on Friday night.
DeKALB – Hampshire’s girls basketball team gladly would take a do-over in the first half of Thursday’s IHSA Class 3A De- Kalb Sectional against Oswego.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS – The celebration never gets old.
It’s time.
It’s been six years since Hampshire’s girls basketball team has made an appearance in the IHSA state finals. For the storied program, that’s too many.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS – It took 16 minutes, but Johnsburg’s girls basketball team eventually looked as though it had been there before.
HUNTLEY – Most teams might have given up after managing only two points in the first quarter against an undefeated powerhouse.
The thought crossed Bill Mitz’s mind on the Saturday of the IHSA state football playoff semifinals.
DeKALB – And so it continues, this undisturbed dominance.
DeKALB – If Prairie Ridge was going to go down, it was going to do so fighting.
Four local girls basketball teams won regional crowns and will advance to sectional semifinals today and Tuesday in Class 3A and 4A action.
At the start of the season, Johnsburg girls basketball coach Mike Toussaint told Megan Lopez she was on the cusp of accomplishing something no other Skyhawks athlete ever had.
Jacobs athletic director Tom Ross said Friday that varsity girls basketball coach Ed Haugens has quit, effective immediately.
CRYSTAL LAKE – It took 10 years, but Prairie Ridge’s girls basketball team finally added another accolade to its banner.
McHENRY – Thursday was, in so many ways, a microcosm of Jacobs’ girls basketball season.
FREEPORT – Marengo’s girls basketball team looked as if coach Todd Price had flipped a switch in the third quarter against Freeport.
ROCHELLE – Hampshire girls basketball coach Sue Ellett urged her team to reach the 50-point mark before DeKalb in her halftime speech Thursday.
LAKE VILLA – The Johnsburg girls basketball team put its foot on the accelerator from the outset Thursday and sped to the IHSA Class 3A Lakes Regional championship.
CRYSTAL LAKE – It definitely wasn’t pretty, but Prairie Ridge’s girls basketball team found a way to stay alive Wednesday.
Inside Girls Basketball
ROCHELLE – Hampshire’s girls basketball team was expected to play as one Wednesday night.
CRYSTAL LAKE – Crystal Lake Central’s girls basketball team needed three quarters to remove an imaginary lid from the basket Wednesday.
McHENRY – Jacobs’ girls basketball team knew what it had to do against Huntley on Tuesday night in an IHSA Class 4A McHenry Regional semifinal.
LAKE VILLA – Blink and you could have missed a bucket from Johnsburg in the Skyhawks’ IHSA Class 3A Lakes Regional semifinal Tuesday.
McHENRY – When your opponent exploits your defensive weaknesses, seems to hit every shot and answer every point you score, it takes a monumental rally to pull out a win.
ALGONQUIN – Jacobs’ chance to win the Fox Valley Conference Valley Division has been messed up for some time.
McHENRY – Much more was at stake Monday night than simply the end of a regular season.
CRYSTAL LAKE – Before, during and after her basketball games, Jenny Hanrahan thinks about her mother.
McHENRY – Cary-Grove’s boys basketball team trailed McHenry by one at halftime Friday night, although the deficit felt much larger to the Trojans.
CARY – The Cary-Grove girls basketball team will enter the postseason on a high after defeating St. Charles North, 64-58, on Friday at Elroy Fitzgerald Gymnasium.
WOODSTOCK – Hampshire and Woodstock North had opportunities to tweak their games Thursday night in their non-conference matchup.
