Benet knew it just had to keep playing.
With shots not customarily falling the way they had for 33 victories previously coming into Saturday’s Class 4A state title game against Fremd at Redbird Arena, Benet had no choice but to keep firing.
After missing on their first 10 three pointers and with Emily Eshoo held scoreless for the entire first half, perhaps the Redwings felt fortunate to be tied at halftime.
Emily Schramek’s two third-quarter triples finally got Benet the momentum towards taking the final steps towards claiming the program’s first girls’ basketball state title, courtesy of a 61-39 victory over Fremd.
“Missing threes don’t bother us. We know we’ve made them. We make them in practice, so we shooting and we know we’re going to make them sometime,” Schramek said.
Benet (34-3) got a team-high 18 points from junior Kathleen Doyle and 15 points from Emily Schramek as it concluded the best season in program history with a 10-game winning streak.
Eshoo, who led the way in its 77-71 victory over Homewood-Flossmoor on Friday, managed to score just eight points but had four points in the third as the Redwings ended the quarter on a 15-7 run.
Schramek’s second triple of the game with 5:19 left in the third gave the Redwings a 29-27 lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
“Yes, we did (think we could win a game shooting 2-of-15 from three-point range) because we realized that last year, we couldn’t have done this. But we changed things, so this year we could,” Schramek said. “We knew that we weren’t going to be defined as the shooting team. That’s going to be our strength, but we’re going to work on rebounding, driving and keep on shooting because (our shots) are going to make it sometime.”
Eshoo, the team’s leading scorer coming into the weekend at 16.4 points a game, tried her best not to get frustrated.
“Yeah, I mean, it was frustrating for me because I’m usually not used to missing all my shots. So Coach (Joe Kilbride) and the whole team has really helped me boost my confidence and I knew that even if I missed a few, I’d make the next few,” she said. “They didn’t give up on me and I would never give up on them.”
The job the Redwings did in the second half and especially in the fourth on the Vikings’ two Division I recruits, Haley Gorecki and Bryana Hopkins was vital.
Gorecki, the Duke-bound senior who earned Class 4A First-Team All-State honors, and Hopkins, the Northwestern-bound junior, combined 30 points but managed to score just six combined points in the fourth, all by Gorecki.
“Honestly, it was nothing special. It was just they were doing what we’ve trying to do and they did it with great effort, great second multiple efforts. I mean, it was really just hard work,” said Kilbride, who won a state title in his first year since taking over for former Redwings’ coach Peter Paul. “We call it ‘wall it up.’ The ball’s on its way to the rim, you make a wall and they did a great job of that.”
Redwings’ sophomore center Katie Jaseckas recorded a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds in the midst of battling inside with Gorecki and Hopkins.
Meeting Benet for a second time this season after the Redwings earned a 61-54 victory Jan. 19 at the McDonald’s Shootout, Fremd (29-5) got going behind Gorecki and Hopkins.
Gorecki had 11 first-half points while Hopkins was close behind with seven.
A 8-0 run from the Vikings turned a 13-8 Benet lead into a 16-13 Fremd lead with just over five minutes left in the first half as Gorecki and Hopkins accounted for all eight points.
Doyle paced the Redwings with a nine-point first half while Schramek, Elise Stout and Jaseckas each had four points.
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