By Michael Wojtychiw

Kenwood routs Taft to set up title rematch with Young

It’s been a goal of the Kenwood girls basketball team to bring home a city title. But before the Broncos could get back to that coveted game, they had to go through an upstart Taft team, which was making what coach Brandon Lathom felt was the program’s first, maybe second, trip to the city’s Final Four.

The third-seeded Eagles have had some impressive victories this season over both suburban and city opponents, but fell short when going up against last year’s city runner-up, eventually falling 64-42 Wednesday evening in the first game of the Red Division semifinals at Credit Union1 Arena on the campus of the University of Illinois-Chicago. 

“It was a great experience for our girls,” Lathom said. “The experience was great for them, they were excited about getting shirts, getting to play on a court like this.

“The moment wasn’t too big for them, which I was happy to see. I told them before the game ‘This may be your only chance to play at a place like this, so be ready to come out and leave it all on the floor, no matter who you’re playing.'”

The Broncos got off to a fast start courtesy of Natasha Barnes’ outside shooting. The Missouri State University commit knocked down two 3-pointers in the game’s first couple minutes and added a a third shortly before the end of the first period to give the Broncos a 26-15 lead after one quarter.

After a sluggish second quarter by both teams, one in which the teams combined to make 6-of-24 shots, the Broncos came out in the second half, much like they did at the start of the game, extending a 36-21 halftime lead to 55-33 by the time they third period had ended.

They did it the way they’ve been doing it all year: with tough defense, pressure and a fun run and gun offense. 

“I liked our energy in the first quarter,” Kenwood coach Andre Lewis said. “I thought we came out with alot of energy, moved the ball well, knocked down open looks.

“We did a good job of speeding up Taft, something I think they’re not accustomed to. I saw that when you allow them to be methodical and intentional, they beat you that way. I didn’t want the game to be more of a half-court game. We prefer it to be more open court.”

“We want to play fast,” the Taft coach said. “We’re best in transition. We’re a young team and still struggling in half-court sets, so when we got out in transition and broke their press a little bit, we wanted to play that way, get our open shots wide in the corners, but then when we get in our half-court sets, our youth kind of shows. Most of the year, we’ve been trying to play fast, but when you play a team like Kenwood, with the experience and talent they have, it’s hard to do the things you want to do.”

The two teams faced off in the beginning of the season in a Thanksgiving tournament in a game the Broncos won by 61 points. That Taft team, however, is not the Taft team that played Kenwood on Wednesday.

“We got tougher, both mentally and physically since then,” Lathom said. “We’ve had a lot of growth from some of our younger girls. Gaby and Elena (Gonzalez) are freshmen and sophomores, they’re still getting used to playing against good varsity teams. The experience and dealing with the grind of the regular season really improved us and then we got some girls healthy and that allowed us to try to do some different things.”

For Kenwood, the tough part is keeping their eyes on the goal and not allowing each other to slip up.

“One of the things we talked about in practice, when we played Taft early in the season, it was early and they’re not going to be the same team we saw in November, they’ve had two-and-a-half months to grow,” Lewis said. “You can’t overlook who you have in front of you because once you do, it makes things extremely difficult and you can have a misstep because you didn’t give your opponent the proper respect.

“We just try to live in the moment, take it one day at a time and we did just a mediocre job. We have to be a lot better on Saturday.”

Barnes led a balanced attack that saw five players score between 9-12 points, with 12 points, while Gaby Gonzalez scored a game-high 16 points for the Eagles.

Young ends Lane’s Cinderella run, punches ticket to title game

To say Lane had quite the city tournament might be an understatement. 

What started with a big win over Curie and a double-digit win over Simeon was punctuated with a wild buzzer-beater to defeat Hyde Park in the quarterfinals and set up a date with Young for a chance to go to the city finals.

The run ended right there though, in the semifinals, after the Champions would fall to the Dolphins 76-49 in the second semifinal Wednesday at Credit Union1 Arena.

After a slow start to the season in which it lost four of its first five games, Lane wasn’t sure it would make it this far. That is until a stretch in January, when coach Megan Molloy realized her squad may have something in them that would allow them to make the run.

“It takes a while to build up a program and I think now the girls are buying into what we believe in,” Lane coach Megan Molloy said. “I kept telling the girls we were going to click at the right time and credit to them, they believed in that. We had a bad week where we lost to Payton and Westinghouse. We’d had a bad week before, but they weren’t conference games and those two losses really hurt them.

“Credit to them because they let it hurt them and let it sink in and that’s how they responded to get us here.”

After Lane’s Melanie Blanco scored a three-point play on the Champions’ first possession to give the team a 3-2 lead, the Lane bench was pumped up for what they were hoping would end up being like their previous few.

However, Young flexed its muscle and went on a 20-4 run to end the quarter, squashing Lane’s early hope.

“We started working on the oldest play in basketball, good old-fashioned two-man,” Young coach Krissy Harper said. “I think once they saw how easy that was, that opened the game up for them and they had the ability to drive, hit the pick off the roll.”

Harper would play only seven players as she was hoping to get some players experience in what they hope to do offensively during the playoffs.

It led to some nice stat lines for both Destiny Jackson and Olivia Vick, however. Both girls shot 9-of-20 from the field for 23 points and Jackson added a game-high 13 rebounds.

“It was to get those who are going to play heavy minutes in our rotation the time to make sure they’re in the shape to do that,” Harper said. “We are a transition team, so we wanted to make sure our guards can keep going up and down the floor, making sure they can continue to push the ball if they get fatigued or tired.”

Blanco led Lane with 10 points. 

Young faces Kenwood Saturday at 2 pm at Credit Union1 Arena.