By FRED KRONER
fred@sjodaily.com
NORMAL — The numbers didn’t favor the St. Joseph-Ogden girls’ basketball team Friday night.
The scoreboard atop Redbird Arena, at Illinois State University, showed a 50-31 triumph for Teutopolis over the Spartans in a semifinal game of the IHSA Class 2A state tournament.
Those who watched, either in person or on their televisions, will recognize that the final margin was not indicative of the first three-fourths of the game.
“The first half,” senior Bree Trimble said, “was one of our best halves ever.
“We had it. We were right there with them.”
An opponent which had dispatched SJ-O 78 days earlier by 33 points found itself locked in a fierce fight in the rematch.
“St. Joe took it to us,” Teutopolis coach Laurie Thompson said. “It was a battle.”
The teams were tied, 24-24, midway through the third quarter. In the final 90 seconds of the quarter, Teutopolis’ lead was at three points.
“It wasn’t that we let up,” Trimble said. “They scored more and it got in our heads.”
After the 24-24 deadlock was broken, the Spartans endured a stretch of more than 10 minutes where they managed one basket and one free throw — all by Trimble — and had fallen behind by 23 points.
“They are a good defensive team,” SJ-O head coach Kevin Taylor said. “We had some breakdowns and we never really recovered.”
SJ-O scored the first basket of the game, on a 15-foot shot by senior Peyton Crowe, and held leads on four occasions in the first quarter.
Teutopolis led, 19-15, at halftime and scored the first points of the second half.
SJ-O soon caught up at 24, on a three-pointer by junior Hannah Dukeman at the 3-minute, 31-second mark.
Dukeman was one of four Spartans to hit a three-point shot, but no squad member made more than one.
An open shooting background, instead of a solid gymnasium wall, was a difficult transition for the team to make.
The Spartans wound up making just 20 percent of their shots from the field (10 of 50).
“This was a new atmosphere for us and getting used to it took more time than we thought,” Dukeman said.
The environment combined with the Wooden Shoes’ defense was a lethal combination.
“They were coming out on us pretty hard and making it hard for us to get open,” Crowe said.
Any thoughts of a Spartan comeback were thwarted by Teutopolis’ Sadie Bueker, who had scored four points during the game’s first 27 minutes.
The 5-foot-9 guard then scored 13 points in a 2-minute, 27-second stretch of the final quarter to break the game open.
Her moves were on drives to the basket.
Her philosophy was simple.
“If it keeps working, keep doing it,” Bueker said.
Trimble led the Spartans in scoring and rebounding with 10 points and nine boards.
Crowe contributed nine points and six rebounds. Dukeman had five points, five rebounds and a team-high three assists.
For the Spartans, it was a clean game. The team committed just six turnovers and only one occurred in the second half. Two Spartans (Dukeman and sophomore Payton Vallee) did not commit a turnover in 50 combined minutes on the court.
“The last time, their press bothered us,” Taylor said. “This time, we handled it well.
“Some of our shot selection kind of hurt us.”
More than one-third of the team’s shots were attempted from three-point range.
“We’re best when we attack and shoot threes,” Taylor said. “Today, we didn’t attack enough.
“We played a lot better (than in the December meeting), but unfortunately, it didn’t work out.”
A telling statistic was points in the paint: Teutopolis held a 34-8 edge. In the first half, all nine of the Wooden Shoes’ baskets were on either layups or putbacks.
“We knew down low, she (Claire Bushur) had size on us,” Taylor said.
Bushur scored 11 of her 13 points in the opening half.
With a 15-game winning streak ended, the Spartans (28-5) will try to regroup and end their season on a high note.
SJ-O will take on Hillsboro (29-6) in today’s 5:30 p.m. third-place game.
“We won’t want to end on a loss,” Trimble said. “We’ll come out strong and play hard.”
Taylor wouldn’t expect anything else.
“This is a special event,” he said. “There is still a lot to play for.
“Only a few teams have the opportunity to win on the last day of the season.”
The 7:15 p.m. championship game will match two storied programs.
Teutopolis (33-4) is seeking its sixth state crown in the sport.
Chicago Marshall (26-8), coached by Hall-of-Famer Dorothy Gaters — who has won 1,132 games in her 44-year career — is chasing an unprecedented 10th state championship.
