Sophomore-led Byron rallies late to stave off Stillman Valley in key girls basketball tilt
STILLMAN VALLEY — In a cleanly played back-and-forth battle of two talented teams, combined with a strong finish from both sides, Byron and Stillman Valley showed just why they are considered two of the best girls basketball programs in the area once again on Friday night.
Led by a 16-point, 12-rebound night from post player Mya Janssen and a 15-point, 5-steal, 5-assist performance from guard/forward Taylor Davidson, Stillman Valley clawed back from 12 down in the fourth quarter to take a 2-point lead with 1:20 left. But Byron's young roster, led by sophomore guards Macy Groharing (20 points) and Malia Morton (19 points), found a way to stave off the Cardinals' powerful late surge, hanging on for a 56-52 early-season win.
More: Area girls basketball Stillman Valley's Taylor Davidson scores 1,000th, then Mya Janssen does it the next night
"We just had to stay poised, and find a way to finish it off," said Groharing, who drained four of the seven 3-point shots she took. "We knew Stillman Valley was going to be tough like this; they always are. Always. And this was a big win for us."
The last time these two teams met, Byron rolled to a 61-38 blowout victory for the Class 2A sectional title last postseason. The Tigers went all the way to the 2A state championship game, falling to Breese Mater Dei in the title match.
Stillman Valley's season ended there, at 28 wins.
This time, however, Byron (7-3, 2-0 Big Northern Conference) had its youngest starting lineup in over a decade, with four sophomores and a junior, with another freshman coming in off the bench. Still, Groharing drained four of her first six shots and the Tigers built a 10-point lead by mid-second quarter.
"I'm proud of our kids," Byron head coach Eric Yerly said. "Stillman (Valley) is a really, really good team and is going to be a very tough out in the postseason. But our kids found a way.
"We did the little things and found a way."
But Stillman Valley (10-3, 2-1 BNC) buried its first seven shots of the fourth quarter and aggressively flipped momentum late.
"We all realized that this was a game we really wanted, and we had to go out and get it," said Janssen, who made all four of her shots, and added five of her rebounds, in the fourth quarter. "This is our floor. This is Stillman Valley, and we wanted for everybody here... But we didn't quite have enough."
Byron also got 12 points from junior Karsyn Bielskis, and Stillman Valley's Amelia Dunseth chipped in with a pair of 3s and 10 points.
The two teams will square off again in less than two weeks when they both participate in the Dixon Holiday Tournament. Dixon is another strong BNC team this year at 10-2, but lost its lone conference game of the season so far when Stillman Valley knocked ir off 49-42 last Friday.
Jay Taft is a Rockford Register Star sports reporter. Email him at jtaft@rrstar.com and follow him on Twitter at @JayTaft. Sign up for the Rockford High School newsletter at rrstar.com. Jay has covered a wide variety of sports, from the Chicago Bears to youth sports, since the turn of the century at the Register Star, and for over 30 years all together.
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Led by sophomore guards Macy Groharing and Malia Morton, Bryon holds on
