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Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Alleman Over the Streaks

From the Argus....

GALESBURG – Though Doris Hatch passed away Monday evening, there was no doubt in the mind of her son, Alleman girls' basketball coach Jay Hatch, that he would make the trip to John Thiel Gymnasium on Tuesday night to coach the Pioneers in their Western Big 6 Conference opener against the Galesburg Silver Streaks.

"She would have kicked my butt if I wouldn't have coached," said Jay, admitting that the day was rough, but it was one that ended with his team pulling out a hard-fought 48-39 victory.

Still, the Alleman players were taken aback a bit by having their coach with them for their basketball game when the game of life had dealt him a setback.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

AP Preseason Polls

State polls

Here are the girls prep basketball polls with rank, team, first-place votes, record and total points:
CLASS 4A
School W-L Pts Prv
1. Marian Catholic (7) 0-0 79 —
2. Rolling Meadows (1) 0-0 72 —
3. Whitney Young 0-0 57 —
4. Homewood-Flossmoor 0-0 43 —
5. Edwardsville 0-0 32 —
6. Neuqua Valley 0-0 23 —
(tie) Wheaton W’ville South 0-0 23 —
8. Bolingbrook 0-0 19 —
9. Huntley 0-0 18 —
10. River Forest Trinity 0-0 15 —
Others receiving votes: Oak Park River Forest 14, Fremd 14, Evanston Township 12, Rock Island 5, Fenwick 4, Loyola 3, Crete-Monee 2, Rockford Boylan 2, Grayslake North 1, Belleville West 1, Geneva 1.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Tough First Week

Streaks went 1-3 during the first week of our tourney. We lost close games to Illini West and to East Peoria, beat Metamora, and then were blasted by state-power Springfield.

Vs. East Peoria, we were led by Shayli Florine who had 18 points and 16 rebounds. Casey Williams had 12 points and 7 rebounds, while Lexi Daniels added 8 points and 8 rebounds. We were down 16 points and came back to within 3 points but could not get the job done.

The game involved 55 fouls called, 5 players on both teams fouling out, 72 free throws shot, and a game that took over two hours to complete. The game also had technicals called on each coach for "being out of the box." The calls were by an official 60 feet from the coach. One coach while instructing his players had the toes of one foot over the coaching line- good vision from 60 feet. The most bizarre call was when the E. Peoria coach got a technical because "he left the box before another official had finished calling a time out." In other words a time out was being administered but evidently the 60 feet away thought he was a second too early getting ready for the time out.

Friday, November 22, 2013

Dunlap Win in OT


From Peoria Journal Star....
Two free throws with 0.7 seconds left in overtime cemented a victorious homecoming for Heather Cassady.
Dunlap rallied to beat Peoria Christian, 44-40 in overtime on Thursday night as a part of the Galesburg Thanksgiving Tournament. The Eagles (2-0) gave Cassady her first home coaching victory at her alma mater.
“If we’re going to win, it’s going to be as a team,” the 1998 Dunlap grad said. “We have a lot of depth. “It’s just learning what it takes to win.”

Streaks Defeat Metamora


Photo- Steve Davis
Streaks jumped to a large half-time lead and upped it to a 29 point lead in the early fourth quarter. Streaks then hung on to a 66-45 win. All the Streaks got to play. Katee Lingafelter and Macy Steck came off the bench in the fourth quarter and drained threes.

Shayli Florine led the Streaks in scoring with 17 points, also in double figures was Haley Kelso with 11. Casey Williams and Sabrina Clay each added 8 points. Sabrina and Shayli pulled down 7 rebounds apiece, while Kailyn Boydstun dished out 5 assists.

Galesburg improved in two critical areas- turnovers and fouls- but still have to get better. We turned the ball over 19 times and forced 23 turnovers. We committed 20 fouls which resulted in 20 ft attempts for Metamora.

Streaks Teams Collecting for Washington

The girls and boys basketball teams are going to be collecting cash donations to give to Washington High School for them to use for tornado relief. Money will be collected at this Friday's game, next Wednesday's boys game, and then at both boys and girls games on next Saturday.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Streaks Lose Opener

Sami Thompson (Steve Davis photo)
Streaks lost their season opener to Illini West 64-61 at Thiel Gym. Streaks led most of the game including a 58-51 lead with under 3:00 minutes to go.

Streaks were in a fouling mood. Despite being up, we fouled late in the game which allowed IW to score 7 of last 9 points from the foul line. Streaks committed 21 fouls which resulted in 24 ft attempts for IW.

Ball handling was a major problem for the Streaks as we turned the ball over 26 times.

On the bright side, Sabrina Clay and Shayli Florine were dominant inside. Both were in double figures with points, and Sabrina pulled down 18 rebounds. Clay's 16 defensive boards set a GHS single game record, breaking a record of 15 set by Sadee Hamilton.

Haley Kelso led the Streaks with 21 points on 50% shooting.

Next up for the Streaks will be Metamora on Thursday at 7:00pm in Thiel Gym.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Rich Get Richer

From the Chicago Tribune...


After two years at Plainfield East, Faith Suggs has transferred to Homewood-Flossmoor.
The 6-foot-1 junior is one of the top players in the area. Her national presence has grown, too, since she tried out for the USA Basketball U16 national team in late May.
"I'm going to miss Plainfield East," Suggs said. "I loved the teachers, principal and it was a great school. But I'm extremely excited about this change."
Suggs' history with newly hired Homewood-Flossmoor girls basketball coach Anthony Smith extends back to the seventh grade, when the two met while Suggs was playing basketball in a gym with her father, former NFL player Shafer Suggs.
Faith Suggs has played for Smith's AAU Dream Team since eighth grade.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Fouls- Refs

As many of you have noticed, the NCAA has decided they want to make college basketball more of a finesse game. To do this college officials have been instructed to call any hand checks on a ball handler, any bumping cutters, or any over physical post defense.

As you watch games, it is apparent there are many more foul calls. The other night I watched a game in which on 7 straight possessions at each end of the floor a foul was called and free throws were shot. I replayed the game and found those 7 possessions involved 2:07 of actual game time. In terms of actual minutes, these 7 possessions took 11:14 to complete, and involved 12 foul shots. What had been an exciting and interesting game, never got back to tempo.

Friday night North Central College women's basketball team beat Ripon College in OT by a 113-111 score. Some of the numbers....
- length of game= 2 hours and 40 minutes
- number of fouls= 73
- combined ft's shot= 93
- Ripon players fouled out= all of top six players

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Dani Teel Playing for Bradley


Got a nice picture from Dani Teel of her playing basketball for Bradley. Dani is part of Bradley's women's club basketball team. She reported they had gone and played in a tourney at ISU. They played vs. SIU-Edwardsville, Indiana, ISU, and Univ. of Illinois. It sounds like a lot of fun. Great to hear she is finding a competitive outlet.

When I heard they played Illinois, I couldn't help but wonder if Dani threw the game.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Season Starts

Basketball officially got off to a start on Monday with our first practice at 6:30am. We greeted 17 players as candidates for the varsity. We had two good practices on Monday, followed by another 6:30am practice today. It is always exciting to see the energy and enthusiasm players bring to the beginning of the season.

We have right around 40 girls involved in basketball on all three levels.