H-BR girls win state, make school history

Hinckley-Big Rock coach Greg Burks holds the IHSA Class 1A championship trophy as his team follows him off of the floor at Redbird Arena at Illinois State University in Normal.
(Jon Cunningham/For The Beacon News)

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NORMAL — Hinckley-Big Rock won the first state title of any kind in the school’s history Saturday afternoon at Illinois State University, as the girls basketball team defeated West Central 42-30 in the Class 1A championship game.

"I couldn’t be more proud of what they did. I don’t know what else to say — it’s absolutely overwhelming," H-BR head coach Greg Burks said. "We kept our composure and we finished strong. That’s what you have to do to win a state title."

The Royals (31-3) withstood a second half rally by the Cougars (31-4) that saw a 12-point lead cut to one with 7:11 to go in the game, but H-BR junior Jenna Thorp controlled the rest of the contest offensively and defensively and helped build the lead back to double digits in the final minutes.

"I learned to keep (their rally) out of my mind, just play our game no matter what the score is, so I wasn’t too worried about that," Thorp said. "I knew if we played our game we could win it."

Hinckley-Big Rock built a 29-17 lead with three minutes to go in the third quarter and seemed to be in control, but Cougars post Tiffany King (15 points) scored five straight points inside, which opened up the perimeter for a 3-pointer by Shelby Kirbach (10 points).

The two combined for five points to start the fourth and cut the H-BR lead to 31-30 before Maxzine Rossler snuck inside for a layup to give the Royals some breathing room.

"I saw Melissa (Hermann) setting a screen and I was like ‘this is what we’ve got to do,’" Rossler said. "The lane was just open and I was just like ‘I can’t miss’ because they were definitely starting to make a come back and this was ours. We didn’t want anyone to take it away."

Thorp then turned a steal into two points to make it 35-30 and the Cougars didn’t score again in the game.

"We just couldn’t get any closer," Cougars coach Brian Bettis said. "Once they got the lead, we had a hard time coming out and guarding them."

Thorp scored six of her 10 points in the final quarter off free throws and had 10 rebounds.

"You hope you have a chance at the end of the game to win, and we did," Burks said. "We made the free throws, we handled the basketball and we defended."

Tess Godhardt added 19 points and eight rebounds for the Royals. Thorp also pulled down 10 rebounds for her second double-double in as many days while Hermann added eighth points.

The Royals got out to a slow start and fell behind 7-1 as the Cougars pushed the ball up the court and attacked H-BR’s 2-3 zone. But after Hermann entered the contest with just over four minutes left in the quarter, the Cougars slowed things down offensively, choosing to play a four corners offense that relied on crisp passing.

Unfortunately for West Central, that didn’t happen. Jess Meyer and Godhardt took advantage of the change and came up with quick steals which sparked the Royals to a quarter-ending 8-2 run that tied the game 9-9.

West Central maintained the same offense throughout the second quarter and H-BR capitalized by opening the frame with 6-0 run off the strength of two Thorp steals.

When King scored at the 5:04 mark to cut the H-BR lead to 15-11, it snapped a 7:39 streak without a field goal for West Central. But the Cougars would not score again until there was under 40 seconds left in the quarter and the Royals took a commanding 21-13 lead into half time.

"We haven’t really had a game where we struggled shooting. Our shooting percentage (30.6-percent) wasn’t what we normally shoot," Bettis said. "It was probably going to come down to whether we could knock three’s down and we couldn’t do it consistently."