Class A: Southeast to play Millard West for title
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Friday's Class A tournament results:
Lincoln Southeast 66, Millard North 41: Lincoln Southeast found the best way to counter Millard North’s 6-foot-7 Melissa MacFarlane was to shoot the basketball from beyond 19 feet, 9 inches.
The top-ranked Knights hit 13 three-pointers, and their full-court pressure defense forced 21 Millard North turnovers en route to a 66-41 victory in the Class A girls state basketball semifinals Friday at the Devaney Sports Center.
“Who’d want to drive it in to a 6-7 girl. That’s intimidating,” said junior all-state guard KK Houser, who led four Knights in double figures with 15 points, all in the first half as she led Southeast to a 39-16 halftime lead.
Three Knights — Houser, Marissa Kastanek and Katie Birkel — play on the same Cornhusker Shooting Stars select team as MacFarlane, who paced the fourth-ranked Mustangs (20-5) with 13 points.
“They’re big in there, so we had to be patient and work the ball for open looks,’’ Houser said. “We were definitely hot tonight.”
The Knights (25-1) will play for their ninth state title under Coach John Larsen at 7 p.m. Saturday against Millard West.
An 11-2 burst, sparked by nine Millard North turnovers in the first quarter, put Southeast up 15-6 after eight minutes, and the Knights were well on their way.
Southeast then hit five straight threes in the first 3:35 of the second quarter, two each by Houser and Kastanek and one from Paige Hubl, to open up a 30-12 lead. Kastanek added 14 points.
After an 0-for-7 start on three-pointers, Southeast hit 10 of its next 14 three-pointers as the lead grew as large as 30 points in the fourth quarter. Katie Birkel had two three-pointers en route to 11 points. She also had six assists.
Haley Lake, who didn’t score in Southeast’s first-round win against Papillion-La Vista, had 10 points, including three three-pointers.
“Against a good team, the first half was easily our best half of the season,’’ said Larsen, whose team was 24-of-49 (48 percent) from the field and 13-of-31 from three-point territory.
“Our kids are good shooters, and they have the green light if it comes out of the offense. We have a lot of good passers and whenever we reversed the ball, we usually got an open look.”
It could’ve been worse for the Mustangs. Southeast hit 15 threes in a game earlier this season against Fremont, tying the state record the Knights originally set in 1999.
“You never expect anyone to come out and hit 13 threes,” Millard North coach Jeff Ritz said. “Southeast started quickly and dictated everything with their ball movement, shooting and pressure defense. They even outplayed us in the half-court, and I thought we had an advantage there.’’
--Ron Powell
Millard West 45, Kearney 28: As a sophomore, Alison Janecek sometimes has to take a back seat to her senior teammates, older sister Courtney Janecek and Heather Pohl, on Millard West’s front line of three 6-footers.
But Friday at the Devaney Sports Center, the younger Janecek was the driving force for the second-ranked Wildcats (24-1) advancing to their first Class A girls state basketball championship game.
Alison Janecek scored a game-high 16 points and grabbed 14 rebounds, while the Wildcat defense shut out Kearney in the fourth quarter, as Millard West claimed a 45-28 semifinal victory.
“They’ve always been supportive of me,” Alison Janecek said. “My sister can be hard on me, but that’s because she wants me to be the best I can be.”
Fortunately for the Wildcats, Alison Janecek was at the top of her game in the first half, when Kearney (22-4) led by as many as seven points. She scored seven points in the final 2:25 of the half, putting Millard West up 21-20 at the break.
The Wildcats continued their 17-2 spurt in the third quarter, taking a 30-20 lead on a 15-footer by Alison Janecek, just seconds after she twisted her ankle on a defensive rebound on the other end.
“It’s (the ankle) pretty sore, but making that shot made it feel a little better,” she said.
An 8-2 run by the Bearcats, capped by an 18-footer by Ashley Arp with 1:08 left in the third period, got Kearney as close as 32-28 heading into the final eight minutes. The Bearcats, however, were unable to score against Millard West’s 2-3 zone that cut off driving lanes and kept Kearney shooting from the perimeter.
Pohl, who finished with 12 points and seven rebounds, had five fourth-quarter points to help Millard West pull away.
“That’s been our game all year — defense, rebounding, taking care of the ball and hitting free throws,” said Millard West coach Kip Colony, the school’s only girls basketball coach since it opened in 1995. The Wildcats held a 38-24 edge rebounding, committed just 11 turnovers and sank 11 of 13 free throws.
“Every night, it’s someone different and tonight it was Alison Janecek,” Colony said. “Everyone knows their roles and when they need to step up.”
Kearney, 8-of-41 from the field for the game (19 percent) missed all 11 shots in the fourth quarter and both free-throws attempts. The Bearcats hit just 4 of 31 shots in the final three quarters.
“This is by far the worst we’ve shot all year, but you have to give Millard West a lot of credit,’’ said Kearney coach Jason Boyd, whose team had an 11-game winning streak snapped. “It’s hard to get anything inside against them because they‘re so big.’’
Guards Maggie Maher and Nicole Arp paced Kearney with seven and six points, respectively.
--Ron Powell
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Coleen Bacon wrote on February 29, 2008 4:34 pm:
GO BEARCATS "