Kathleen Doyle decided enough was enough.
With fellow Big Ten recruit Bryana Hopkins threatening to take the state title she claimed last March away from her, Doyle – per her custom – took over.
A pair of late three-pointers from Doyle helped pull Benet from out of the fire as it rallied late to earn a second straight Class 4A state title with a 42-39 victory over Fremd at Redbird Arena.
The Nebraska-bound Doyle capped a tremendous high school career by pouring in 24 points to help lead the Redwings to a 15th straight victory.
“I think everybody in the gym could probably sense we were struggling offensively,” Doyle said. “We were sort of playing Fremd’s half-court game when we really like to get into the full-court. We just settled down and ran our offense and I got open looks and made them. I can’t say enough about my teammates who stayed with me the whole game. I’m so proud of all of them for finishing this game off.”
Eight of her game-high 24 points came in the fourth while Hopkins, headed for Northwestern, was doing her best to help the Vikings get revenge from last year’s loss to Benet at Redbird Arena.
After scoring 10 points against the Redwings in last year’s 61-39, state title game loss, Hopkins had 10 points in the third quarter alone.
Hopkins’ third-quarter exploits allowed the Vikings to end the third on a 14-4 run to take a two-point lead to the fourth.
But after Hopkins’ final basket of the night with 2:52 left in regulation, giving Fremd a two-point lead at 37-35, it would never lead again – thanks to a fade-away triple from Doyle.
Responding to Hopkins’ 10-point third-quarter to only permit her four points in the fourth was another impetus for the Redwings’ triumph.
“I think we just focused in on her more,” Benet junior center Katie Jaseckas said of Hopkins. “She was getting buckets and we needed to get stops. So I think it was just mental focus mainly.”
With Benet struggling to find any offensive traction through eight minutes, Doyle stepped up.
Doyle’s 10 second-quarter points were part of a 16-2 Redwings’ run that helped them seize control against the Vikings.
After Sami Valentine’s trey marked the Redwings’ only scoring in a first quarter that saw the Vikings end with a 6-0 run, a three-pointer from Jaseckas – who had seven – tied the game.
From there, Doyle proceeded to score 10 of the next 13 points in the quarter for Benet (32-3) as it went into halftime up 21-13.
“I don’t think we’ve ever scored that small amount in a quarter,” said Doyle, who had 30 points in a 68-51 victory over Trinity in Friday’s second state semifinal. “We knew something was going to change eventually and shots were going to fall. But we weren’t worried about it. We just stayed the course and shots started falling for us.”
Fremd (30-3) saw its 15-game winning streak get snapped while falling to Benet in a state title game for the second straight year after a 61-39 loss a year ago.
For a team who lost the services of Emily Eshoo and Emily Schramek after last year’s run to the program’s first state title, Saturday’s return trip to Illinois State’s campus was just as sweet.
“There’s a lot of character here, a lot of competitive grit and tenacity,” said second-year Redwings’ coach Joe Kilbride. “We talked about this. There was going to be no flinch, no rattle. We were just going to play for 32 and the kids did that.
“(Fremd) had that one big (third-quarter) run and I called timeout just to say, ‘Everybody good? Yep.’ It wasn’t like I gave a big speech. It was just, ‘yep, keep playing.’”
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