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Girls Basketball: Libertyville edges Zion-Benton
Zion-Benton's Octavia Crump (3) Libertyville's Nicole Kruckman (45) | Michelle LaVigne~Sun-Times Media
Updated: December 21, 2011 11:11PM
Molly Moon hit two free throws with 18 seconds left and Libertyville held on to edge Zion-Benton 47-46 on Wednesday in the semifinals of the Mundelein holiday tournament.
The Wildcats will face Rolling Meadows at 8 on Thursday night as they try to win the tourney championship for the second straight year.
Zion (11-4) will play Cary-Grove at 6:30 for third place.
Zion led 46-43 when star center Octavia Crump (19 points) made the first of two free throws with 46 seconds left.
But not only did she miss the second shot, but she fouled out going for the rebound.
Nicole Kruckman made the ensuing free throws for the Cats to make it 46-45.
Zion then turned the ball over with 30 seconds to play, which set up Moon for the winning tosses.
Zion had plenty of time to shoot for the win, but wound up with a baseline jumper by a closely guarded Sam Rodriguez just before the buzzer.
“Obviously, we’re big rivals with Zion, but we won this tournament last year. Coming in, we didn’t want people talking about all the people we lost (to graduation),” said Alex Haley (team-high 17 points), the lone returnee from last year’s one-loss squad.
“We wanted to come in and prove ourselves. We’re reloading, not rebuilding. We wanted to take it to them and play in the championship game, like we did last year.”
Libertyville coach Kathie Swanson liked the way her team finished the game.
“We showed composure at the end. It would have been very easy, when they put the pressure on and we weren’t taking care of the ball, to get frustrated and give up,” she said. “We know what they’re going to do; they know what we’re going to do. We know it’s going to be a battle.
“I’d like to see some more leadership and more composure.”
Zion and Libertyville now have played six times in 13 months, with the Cats holding a 4-2 edge.
On the other side, Z-B coach Tanya Johnson wnats to see smarter play from her team.
“Octavia played spectacularly in the fourth quarter to bring us back, then gets called for her fifth foul for climbing on somebody’s back,” Johnson said. “We have to be smarter than that. She’s a tremendous leader for us. Her energy sparked the defense, and with her off the floor, we had trouble handling the ball.”
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