Sting of Defeat

1997 was a great year for the Streaks. They finished the regular season a perfect 27-0 on the way to 4th place in the State tourney. Four of the five starters were gone. Going into the 1998 season, the Streaks returned only two players who had played significant minutes.

The 1998 Streaks had no seniors on their roster. The starting lineup was made up of three sophomores and two juniors. The first players off the bench were three freshmen and one sophomore. It was certainly not a lineup that had the experience to bring fear to our opponents.



An amazing thing began to happen, the young Streaks seemed to win every close game. In the T'giving Tourney, they came from behind to beat Washington by two. In December they hit a bucket at the buzzer to beat Richwoods on the road by two. Then at the Bloomington Christmas Tourney, Jaque Howard hit a three at the buzzer to win the championship over Mendota.

The regular season ended with the Streaks having lost only 5 games, and they were ranked #7 in the State. You have to remember, this was a time when there were only two classes in Illinois. So Galesburg was rated #7 among many Chicago schools.

Even though we had gone to State the two previous years, we had not really been too concerned with the pairing at Redbird. We were just concerned about the next game. But at some point we began to realize a trip to the Elite 8 would mean a matchup with the #1 team in Illinois and defending State Champs- Loyola.

We entered the Elite 8 with two big scorers but alot of players who could score. The starting lineup was Jaque Howard (soph) 7.7ppg/5.3 assists, Michelle Flaar (soph)5.5ppg, Megan Pacheco (soph)15.8ppg, Sarah Larson (jr)19.8ppg/10.6rpg, and Jenny Zolper (jr)6.1ppg/7.1rpg. The next players off the bench were even younger- Whitney Snyder (soph) 3.7ppg/4.4rpg, Rachel Bicego (frosh) 2.2ppg, Ashley Shepard (frosh) 3.2ppg, and Sarah Pacheco (frosh) 3.6ppg. Also on the roster were Mary Lindstrom, Michelle Mundy, Kimi Peck, Stacey Boettcher, Hilary Hennenfent.

The Streaks battled Loyola at Redbird but were handled 59-43. The frustrating thing was that Loyola was also a team who would return everybody, and they went onto win State again.

Two of the toughest things for teams to deal with are winning and losing. Although we returned everyone, the big question was how this group would handle their season's success- would they be full of themselves and satisfied? And how would they handle their huge lose to the powerful Loyola team.