Confidence boost: SHG girls basketball on target just in time for postseason
It wasn’t for a City Tournament title, or even a Central State Eight Conference win, but Maggie Fleischli was happy to help Sacred Heart-Griffin secure one final girls basketball win over its Washington Street rival, Springfield High.
“It feels so good to win our last game here (at SHG’s Jim Belz Gymnasium), my last game here, and beating Springfield because City was such a tough loss for us,” Fleischli said. “I really feel better after this: we all do.”
SHG coach Steve Klunick also liked what he saw in the Cyclones’ 65-49 nonconference win over the Senators on Tuesday and hopes it was a harbinger for success as No. 4 SHG next plays in the Class 2A Camp Point Central Regional semifinals against either No. 5 Hamilton or No. 10 Beardstown at 7:30 p.m. Monday.
“That’s the game you’re looking to take into regionals,” Klunick said. “You can see the emotions on the seniors: it’s the last game they’re going to play here.”
For Springfield High coach Brad Scheffler, Tuesday’s performance was concerning from a defensive standpoint. He suggested Wednesday’s practice at Springfield’s Willard Duey Gymnasium would be intense for the City Tournament champs.
“I challenged them after the game, I told them, ‘We’ve got to find five tough girls,’” Scheffler said. “We’ve got to find five tough ones who can play, whether it’s a guard and four posts or five posts or five guards, we’ve just got to find five tough ones who can play.”
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Good shooting night
SHG (20-11) got a game-high 20 points from junior Izzy Hassebrock, who connected on three of her four 3-point attempts. SHG was 5-for-7 as a team before senior guard Caroline Lambert, who broke her ankle before the season, got a minute at the end of the game on senior night and fired up a 3-pointer and missed.
" It was definitely nice to see our shots fall; that hasn’t been happening recently,” Hassebrock said.
It was the type of shooting performance Klunick has said the Cyclones have been missing, especially with Callie Huston and Fleischli scoring inside. Huston, who received pre-game recognition for surpassing 1,000 points in her career, was 6-for-10 and 6-for-7 at the free-throw line for 18 points. Fleischli scored all nine of her points in the first half.
“We have had a lot of people playing us zone — rightfully so, because we haven’t been shooting the ball very good — so the last two weeks, we’ve been putting in a lot of work on our zone offense,” Klunick said. “You make shots, you really look good.”
Reese Watson (11 points) and Norah Long (five points) also both hit from downtown.
“I feel like everyone else thinks we can’t shoot because we’ve had an off-season and we have — I’m not going to deny that,” Fleischli said, “but really everything goes into making a shot: not just it leaving a person’s hand like getting the rebound, getting the open look, screening. It’s a team effort for one person to make a shot.
“They fell tonight but that’s what we needed but it was everyone’s effort to do that.”
In the second quarter, as SHG outscored SHS 24-12 to take a 34-24 halftime lead, Watson, Long and Fleischli all hit on long 2-point jumpers which forced the Senators to extend their defense.
In five of SHG's losses, the Cyclones have failed to score more than 30 points — including a 22-point outing against Springfield High in the City Tournament title game and a 21-point effort against Galena at the State Farm Classic in December.
Attacking on the inside
With the Senators’ playing a second half without junior forward Ariana Williams, combined with the outside shooting of SHG, Huston got to work.
After a two-point first half, Huston was the beneficiary of open driving lanes to the hoop. She was 5-for-7 in the second half and scored 16 of her 18 points either in the paint or at the free-throw line.
“We did move the ball really well and Callie works her butt off,” Klunick said. “For as much as she gets the ball, she’s probably open two or three times more. We miss her a lot but she keeps working for it and it proves out. She keeps playing through it.”
Huston credited her teammates with looking for her advantages and open looks and getting her the ball in just the right position at the right time.
“We’ve definitely been focusing on ball movement,” Huston said. “We’ve struggled with that over the year. We’ve really practiced on it and it’s really showing now.”
Scheffler said he’s hopeful Williams can play Thursday in the Senators’ regular-season finale at Chatham Glenwood.
“Ari is our inside force with rebounds and making baskets,” Scheffler said. “Over the last two games, we haven’t had her and it’s very evident when we don’t have her, how we don’t control the middle.”
But Scheffler insisted he felt his team still could’ve overcome Williams’ absence.
“First half is where we lost the game, giving up 34 points: 34 points in the first half is crazy; it’s too many points,” Scheffler said. “Our defense isn’t tough enough right now.
“Really, it’s overall: offensive rebounds we’re giving up, loose balls; we’re just slow right now and we’re not aggressive enough. We’ve been aggressive all year and the last two games, we haven’t been.”
Keziah Toran led SHS (18-10) with 12 points, Mia Volpert had 11 and Emma Scheffler scored eight.
The fourth-seeded Senators open their postseason against No. 5 Jerseyville in the Class 3A Jerseyville Regional semifinals on Monday at 7:30 p.m.
Contact Ryan Mahan: 788-1546, ryan.mahan@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/RyanMahanSJR.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: IHSA basketball: SHG girls avenge City Tournament loss to Springfield
