2024 WCIA 3 Girls Basketball Player of the Year: Kloe Froebe

LINCOLN (WCIA) — Ever since the final seconds ticked off the clock in the 2023 Class 3A Girls Basketball Championship, Kloe Froebe and Lincoln knew the pressure was on to make it back.

“I think it set in right away,” Froebe said. “Like right when that final buzzer rang.”

“The most important thing for them was getting back there,” Lincoln head coach Taylor Rohrer said. “That’s what was going to make this season all worth it.”

“We would remind ourselves, ‘Remember what that felt like last year, remember what it felt like to hear the crowd roar for the other team,'” Froebe said. “We used that all year. I think just putting that pressure on us made us excel to a level above what we thought we could do.”

And pressure makes diamonds. The Railers went undefeated in the regular season for the second consecutive year on their way back to State.

“I mean we thought it was hard last year? This year was ten times harder,” Froebe said. “We had a difficult path, we had a lot of people going against us, we had a lot of people not wanting us to succeed.”

Along the way, the legend of Froebe grew. The guard set Lincoln records for scoring, rebounds, steals, field goals, three pointers, and free throws. Not just in a single season, but also in a career.

“She is a generational player and she is someone who has changed the game of basketball,” Rohrer said.

Records continued to fall at the State tournament. Froebe set the marks for most points in a 3A Championship Game and IHSA State Tournament career. All en route to a convincing title game win over Glenwood, ending things this time with tears of a different kind.

“I remember looking at the scoreboard and thinking, ‘We’re about to win.’ I look at all my friends on the court and I tell them to just look up into the crowd and it was crazy,” Froebe said. “Lincoln is just insane. You have a community that’s waited so long to win a State championship and to be able to bring that to the town is something I’ll never forget.”

Froebe will continue her career on the court at Colorado State. With 3,262 career points in high school, Froebe is 5th on the state’s All-Time scoring list, cementing her spot in Illinois basketball history. Ending her career in the only way the 2024 WCIA 3 Girls Basketball Player of the Year could have imagined.

“I feel like we all just let out a sigh of relief. We all just for the first time in two years just breathed,” Froebe said. “Just walking off the court with my best friends and knowing that we did it and we did what we wanted to since we were little, since we were young.”

WCIA 3 GIRLS BASKETBALL PLAYER OF THE YEAR WINNERS

2024: Kloe Froebe, Lincoln

2023: Kloe Froebe, Lincoln

2022: Mallory Ramage, Mattoon

2021: Erin Houpt, Danville

2020: Capria Brown, Schlarman

2019: Anaya Peoples, Schlarman

2018: Anaya Peoples, Schlarman

2017: Sierra Thompson, Mattoon

2016: Tori McCoy, St. Thomas More

2015: Lexi Wallen, St. Thomas More

2014: Tori McCoy, St. Thomas More

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