Subscribe by RSS
Lady Blue Thunder advance silenced
The playoffs will continue without the Belvidere North Lady Blue Thunder after the Lady E-Rabs dropped North 62-54 in the Harlem Regional Semi-Final on Wednesday, Feb. 15.
The winter sports season is now closed at Belvidere North.
In the Lady Blue Thunder season finale, East’s Madilyn Hecox scored 17 points. She earned her open looks and made the bonus shots count.
At the end of regulation, she joined her teammates in a trip to the Class 4A Regional Final to face the squad that finished ahead of both Belvidere North and East, in the NIC-10 race, Hononegah.
East went on to knock out the NIC-10’s second-place finisher, Hononegah, in the Harlem Regional Championship on Friday, Feb. 17, 50-43 in overtime.
East then moved on to defeat Streamwood in the Hampshire Sectional Semi-Final. They will stand against Boylan for the right to advance to the Class 4A Super-Sectional at Dundee-Crown on Monday, Feb. 27.
During the regular season, Belvidere North battled to a 10-6 NIC-10 mark. They were three games over .500 for the season and carried a 16-13 record into the playoffs. They couldn’t lock down many needed win streaks, but they hung in there, a lot of the time.
Belvidere North worked through the last few weeks of the regular season at a clip slightly below .500. It’s not an ideal way to get ready for the post-season. When the playoffs start, many coaching staffs hope their team is playing its best basketball.
Throughout the season, things haven’t worked out exactly as the Lady Blue Thunder had hoped. They were playing well enough to win, but saw a few slip away in the days before the playoffs began. They seemed to be not quite ready to take on the dynamic 4A Field which waited for them to advance in tournament play.
East was ready when they faced Belvidere North.
In the end, timing is the biggest factor in a team’s success or failure. East was ready to play and expressed it with the knock-out punch to Belvidere North in the Harlem Regional Semi-Final. The Lady E-Rabs got hot at the right time and rode the win streak to the Super 16 and their rematch with Boylan.
In the NIC-10 this season, there wasn’t going to be any talk of any conference title by Belvidere North or any other team besides Boylan. The Lady Blue Thunder, as all other conference opponents, saw Boylan was too good.
The Lady Titans were ranked near the top in the State of Illinois Class 4A polls for many reasons. Their overall conference mark of 16-0 was a part of a 27-1 season. They earned the top-seed in the Hampshire 4A Sectional Complex. They played for the 4A Sectional Title on Thursday, Feb. 23.
