Girls Basketball: Young’s defense key vs Proviso West

Updated: February 16, 2012 10:00PM

Young played defense in the third quarter Thursday. That was enough.

Clinging to a slim 22-20 lead over Proviso West at intermission, the No. 1 Dolphins (29-0) turned up the heat on the hosts and extended the lead to 39-23 at the end of eight minutes.

That was more than enough cushion for Young, which defeated the Panthers 61-39 in the Class 4A regional championship game in Hillside to advance to next week’s sectional at Lyons.

But nobody in orange, blue and white was happy about how they got there.

“We played defense in the third quarter,” Young coach Corry Irvin said. “I don’t know about the rest of the game. We couldn’t get a shot to fall and our rotations on defense were bad the whole game. We’ll practice on it, trust me. But we’re happy to have another day to play.”

Young’s offense was AWOL most of the game. Unofficially, the Dolphins missed 21 layups, and officially, they were just 9 of 21 from the free-throw line. A couple of three-pointers by Young senior Jasmine Ogunjimi made the final score more convincing.

“We just had a rough start, a slow start,” said Young junior Linnae Harper, who had 19 points and 17 rebounds, but was among the Dolphins who struggled converting fastbreak opportunities. “ I think we weren’t really focused.

“We tried to pull it together in the second half,” she added. “We tried to do the little things and hustle, get the rebounds and stop our mental lapses. We just tried to pick it up and do what we had to do to win the game.”

Alexis Lloyd added 12 points, five rebounds and four assists and Janee Thompson had 10 points for Young. Sophomore Mikaela Boyd led Proviso West (22-11) with 11 points and Jasmine Jackson and Candace Madison each had eight.

“I think we ran out of gas in the third quarter,” Proviso West coach Kellie Robertson said. “We didn’t get the ball to our posts and that was the problem. That’s when we stopped scoring, when we stopped getting the ball to the posts.”

Robertson said she tried to warn her young team that it would face a different Young team in the second half.

“I knew that Young was going to come back with a different attitude, with a different fire,” she said. “They’re not used to being close in any games. They’re a very beatable team. I think their weaknesses are often exposed in games like this. We just weren’t able to capitalize on their weaknesses.”

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