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NORMAL – Edwardsville's girls basketball team did all they could against Lombard Montini Friday evening.
In the end, what did the Tigers in was the shots that they couldn't get to fall for them.
“Kudos to Montini; they hit a few more shots than we did,” said Tiger coach Lori Blade following the Tigers' 37-30 loss to the Broncos in a semifinal game of the 42nd IHSA Class 4A Girls Basketball Championship at Illinois State's Redbird Arena.
The loss put the Tigers at 30-1 on the season; they will take on Des Plaines Maine West at 5:30 p.m. this evening in the third-place playoff game of the tournament. The Warriors were defeated by defending champion Geneva 58-41 in Friday's other semifinal game; the Broncos-Vikings final is scheduled for 7:15 p.m. Montini improved to 34-2 with the win.
“I'm very proud of our kids,” Blade said. “I'm disappointed for the loss, but I'm not disappointed in them; that's the biggest message I need to give them – they battled. The bigs did what they needed to do and buried us too many times, but we had some open looks and they just didn't go down tonight.”
The Broncos shot 40.5 percent for the game; Blade felt that was because Montini found their big players, Aaliyah Patty and Lindsey Jarosinski, underneath quite a bit. “For them to shoot 40 percent – they had some really good looks under the basket with the bigs,” Blade said. “We did a good job with everybody else, but that's not something you can simulate very well; they did a great job finding them and getting them the ball.”
The Broncos outrebounded the Tigers just 30-28 for the game, but Blade felt not being able to score hurt Edwardsville more. “You look at it, we just didn't hit shots,” Blade said. “I thought we had some good looks; from my standpoint, we are here to put kids in good positions to get shots and some night, they go down, and some nights, they don't, but for the most part, we didn't force a lot (of shots).”
EHS got off to a good start, getting to a 7-2 lead about halfway through the opening quarter before Montini tied things up on baskets from Patty and Jarosinski, taking the lead for good right before the quarter-time siren on a Patty three-ball; a Rachel Pranger jumper early in the second brought the Tigers to 12-9 before the Broncos got the lead to 21-15 at the half; EHS got to within three again at the start of the third, but could get no closer, with Patty hitting most of the shots that got the Broncos to 30-23 at three-quarter time and holding steady through the final quarter to run out winners on the night.
Kate Martin led the Tigers with 13 points on the night, with Jaylen Townsend adding nine and Pranger four, with Myriah Noodel-Hayward and Quierra Love each scoring two; Patty led the Broncos with 15 points, with Jarosinski adding 11 and Llyse Pitts contributing eight.
