ALTON – The Alton High School girls basketball team will make its first-ever trip to the IHSA Class 4A state tournament on Friday morning, March 7.
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They take on Kenwood (33-3) at 11:30 a.m. in the first Class 4A semifinal at CEFCU Arena on the campus of Illinois State University.
Loyola Academy (34-2) plays Fremd (29-5) in the other semifinal at 1:15 p.m. The championship game is set for a late tip-off on Saturday at 8 p.m.
The Kenwood Broncos won the LaGrange (Lyons) Sectional by defeating Whitney Young 71-55. They then beat top-seeded Marist 62-48 in the super-sectional.
Kenwood is averaging 70 points per game of offense. Players to look out for are senior captain, number four, Ariella Henigan. She’s averaging 16.3 PPG. She is one of seven seniors on the team. All of them are used in rotation as the Broncos can comfortably go 12 players deep.
Henigan can also shoot the three but so can junior, number zero, Danielle Brooks. They are both 40 percent three-point shooters. Brooks is second on the team in points per game with 13.9.
Other players to look out for are Kenwood’s interchangeable centers. Both seniors, number five Jade Hamilton-Gill and number 21, captain Diann Jackson. Hamilton-Gill is listed at 6-foot-2 while Jackson is 6-foot-1. It will be an interesting matchup against Alton’s two bigs, Jarius Powers and Talia Norman.
The Broncos enter Friday’s semifinal on a five-game win streak. They lost their regular-season finale to Whitney Young (25-9) 72-61 on Feb. 15. The other two losses are to Benet Academy (29-3) and Crestwood Prep out of North York, Ontario.
The only common opponent between Alton and Kenwood is Fremd. The Redbirds beat Fremd 80-72 on Jan. 4 while the Broncos won 69-63 on Dec. 10.
Alton comes into the game having won nine in a row. The Redbirds are averaging 63.6 points per game of offense while allowing an average of 37.4 PPG.
Alton finished fifth in the Associated Press's final rankings, and Kenwood was first in the state poll.
A special thanks to our sponsor Carrollton Bank for supporting Riverbender.com’s coverage of Alton Redbirds and Carrollton Hawks girls basketball.
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