The Rochelle Lady Hub varsity basketball team saw its season come to a close during Monday night’s IHSA 3A Rochelle Regional Semifinal game against Rockford Boylan.
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ROCHELLE — The Rochelle Lady Hub varsity basketball team saw its season come to a close during Monday night’s IHSA 3A Rochelle Regional Semifinal game against Rockford Boylan.
Kaylee Harter drained three first-quarter 3-pointers for the Titans, who scored the first 22 points of the game and held the Lady Hubs without a point or a made field goal in the first quarter. The scoreless opening quarter was too much for Rochelle to overcome, as the sixth-seeded Lady Hubs fell to the second-seeded Titans 68-26. Boylan will advance to the championship game on Friday night, while the Lady Hubs conclude their 2023-24 season with a 13-18 overall record.
“We saw tremendous growth this season,” head coach Jon Gehm said. “From the beginning, I thought this team had talent and we had to learn how to win… These seniors really showed a lot of resiliency and it was a great first year for our program. The seniors were a huge part of it.”
Junior forward Kendyl Darby snapped the roughly nine-minute long scoring drought for the Lady Hubs, putting home a low-post basket for the team’s first points of the game early in the second quarter. But Rochelle had few answers for Boylan’s 6-foot-2 forward Lily Esparza, who took over the second quarter with five low-post field goals and finished the game with 21 points to lead all scorers. The Denver recruit Esparza propelled the Titans to a 38-7 halftime lead over Rochelle.
“I told the girls after the game, especially our sophomores and juniors, that we have to learn to hate the feeling of losing,” Gehm said. “We have to carry that with us into the offseason and use that as motivation, whether we’re working out in open gyms or in camp during the summer. I think the girls took that to heart and I think the future is bright for Rochelle girls basketball.”
Despite trailing by over 30 points at halftime, the Lady Hubs didn’t back down, outscoring Boylan 16-14 during the third quarter even though the Titans still had their starters on the floor. Senior guard Loretta Atkinson fueled the Lady Hub offense in the third quarter, drilling a trio of 3-pointers for all nine of her points in the game. Junior forward Abby Metzger also scored four of her six points in the second half, putting home a pair of low-post shots around the basket.
“Our girls were fighting,” Gehm said. “We told the girls at halftime that they might lose the game, but they couldn’t go out without a fight. The girls took that to heart and I can’t say enough about how Loretta finished the season. There were points earlier in the season where she wasn’t getting much playing time and she could’ve hung her head, but she didn’t and she fought back. We needed her in some big games at the end of the season and she was able to step up.”
Darby finished with five points and senior guard Megan Seebach sank a second-quarter 3-pointer for three points in the loss. Senior guard Kara Martinez chipped in two points.
