LT Sports Roundup: Girls Basketball Season Ended in Regional Semifinals [VIDEO]

The Lyons Township girls basketball team enjoyed a great reversal of fortune this season.

Starting senior tri-captains Colleen Connors, Maggie Orlowski and Clare Polega were a big reason why.

On Wednesday, the Lions nearly had one last comeback in them, but their season ended with a 54-37 loss to Proviso West in the Class 4A Proviso West Regional semifinals in Hillside.

LT (16-11), the No. 9 seed in the LT Sectional, trailed by as many as 13 points in the second quarter but closed to 30-27 midway through the third quarter. No. 7-seed Proviso West (22-10) ended the quarter leading 37-29 and opened the fourth quarter with an 8-2 run to pull away.

Last year, in Katie Meyers' first season as the LT head coach, the Lions' record was 9-17.

“We turned our season around, a complete 180 (degree) flip. Needless to say, there was dramatic improvement,” Meyers said. “All in all, I’m proud of our team. Proviso West had a great game. In the second half especially, they were really pushing ahead and they kept their lead.”

With a combination of the seniors and four key underclassmen – juniors Ashanti Davis and Sara Beck, sophomore Kayla Hennessey and freshman Victoria Swift—the Lions not only enjoyed their first winning season since 2005, the last time they won a regional championship, but also were in contention for the West Suburban Conference Silver Division title until the final day. LT’s other seniors were Lauren Gronke, who played in the fourth quarter Wednesday, and Clare Hogan.

“Our senior leadership turned this program around, along with some other facets that really came forward and produced points for us, so it was a combination of youth and wisdom,” Meyers said.

“It was kind of a cool connection between the two (age groups). Often times, a senior class might be real threatened by freshmen and sophomores coming in on a varsity team, and that was the furthest from the truth in our seniors. They were true team players. They get what it takes to be a team.”

Connors and Davis were the team’s leading scorers throughout the season. Davis had a team-best 15 points Wednesday, including LT’s first seven points, along with two rebounds, followed by Connors (9 points, 2 rebounds), Beck (4 points, 3 rebounds), Morrissey (2 points, 4 rebounds), Orlowski (3 points, 2 rebounds), Swift (3 points) and Polega (point, rebounds). Connors and Swift delivered back-to-back three-pointers in the first quarter.

The teams split their regular-season games during Silver play with Proviso West sharing the league title with York at 9-3 and the Lions third at 7-5. The Lions lost their conference opener to the Panthers 54-47 Nov. 29 in Hillside but then pulled off one of their sweetest victories 57-48 Jan. 21 in front of a Pack the Place crowd in La Grange.

In the victory, LT shot 45 percent from the field (14 for 31) with five three-pointers. On Wednesday, the Lions shot just 29 percent (10 for 34), including 4-for-15 underneath or in the lane, and were plagued by turnovers.

“The difference was we were making shots the last time we played them. If you can’t finish a layup and you can’t make your outside shots, you’re not going to win games against good teams,” Meyers said.

“This time, they (also) pretty much had all of the opportunities in the world to get to the paint and they finished well. If they didn’t finish, we didn’t get the rebounds. They don’t miss layups. They find the open people in the open court. We didn’t handle their pressure as I would have liked.”

The Lions led 15-12 and 15-14 after the first quarter but then committed 10 straight turnovers in the second quarter while the Panthers surged ahead 28-15. LT scored the last five points of the half to close to 28-20.

In the third quarter, the Lions went on a 7-0 run to close to 30-27 on Orlowski’s short outside jumper off a pass by Morrissey with 4:12 left in the period.

The Panthers took a timeout and got a big three from senior Jasmine Jackson on the ensuing possession. They also answered Davis’ driving basket that cut the deficit to 33-29 with a driving bank shot from sophomore point guard Mikaela Boyd.

Although scoreless in the first quarter, Jackson finished with 21 points. Taylor Pate, a 6-foot-3 freshman, added 12 and Boyd had 11. The Panthers will play undefeated No. 1 seed Whitney Young (28-0) in Thursday’s regional final.

“Jasmine always plays big for them,” Meyers said. “She sneaks up on you. You never know when she’s going to bite the hardest, but when she does she really puts it to you. She gets points deceptively. And they come at really opportune times for them.”

The Lions now will try to build upon the lessons learned from this season and their seniors. One area the team significantly improved upon this season was scoring (46 points per game), and underclassmen accounted for more than half of those points.

“The future is bright for us. We have a great upcoming class next year in our seniors. We had a great season at the sophomore level. I think we’ll show even more improvement next year,” Meyers said.

“(Our seniors) didn’t want to experience a nine-game winning season again, and they worked their butts off in the offseason. During the season, they were great teammates, they were great mentors and they were, most of all, great friends for each other. I hope that’s what they remember most. There are more important things that really define this season (than this loss).”