Wildkit Girls Crush Cougars In Regular Season Finale

Coaches in the boys and girls basketball programs weren’t all thrilled when the Central Suburban League added a crossover game between teams in the North and South divisions to the schedule at the end of the regular season.

Although the idea was to make sure that rust didn’t set in with too much time off before the start of Illinois High School Association regional tournament play --- and also just to make scheduling easier in general --- some coaches would prefer just to focus on a full week of practices leading up to the postseason.

Not Brittanny Johnson. The Evanston coach saw nothing but positives Tuesday night as the Wildkit girls crushed Vernon Hills 74-28 in their final home game of the season.

Seniors Zuri Ransom and Kailey Starks said good-bye to Beardsley Gymnasium with 22-point efforts each, lifing ETHS to a regular season mark of 13 wins and 15 losses. The Wildkits outscored the Cougars 27-2 in the third quarter in the crossover mismatch.

Vernon Hills, now 9-21 overall, shot a mere 25 percent (11-of-44) from the field and committed 22 turnovers against a mixture of Evanston defenses.

Johnson used the tune-up game to try different lineup combinations along with different defenses, after the Kits had relied more on their traditional man-to-man in recent games.

“Some coaches don’t like the crossover game, I know,” Johnson said. “But I’m grateful to see something new and unknown, and even to be a little confused. That’s what’s going to happen to you in the playoffs against the coaches in this conference because they’re so good. When you see a team for the third time, they’re going to change things up on you. So this was a good game for us to play.

“Vernon Hills is a well-coached team and I thought they were well-prepared for our major defenses. Their point guard was able to get them into their offense for the most part and I thought they moved the ball well. So we went with some different defenses and some different lineups.”

Starks’ foul trouble dictated part of that strategy in the first half. The senior standout, whose all-out efforts every time she steps on the floor hasn’t resulted in much foul difficulty all season, picked up her third personal with 5 minutes, 30 seconds left in the second quarter and took a seat on the bench.

Evanston’s offense stalled at that point, although Ransom’s 3-point shot supplied a comfortable 32-19 advantage at the intermission. When Starks returned to the action, the hosts reeled off a 9-0 run to start the third quarter and built the lead to 59-21 on their way to a running-clock victory.

Starks finished with 22 points and 9 rebounds and Ransom was credited with 22 points and 6 steals. Freshman point guard Emma Jocson led the Cougars with 6 points.

“When Kailey picked up her third foul we did have to switch defenses,” noted the ETHS coach. “She usually has the most responsibilities on defense, and without her it didn’t make much sense to try to run what we wanted to run.

“Our shot selection was way better in the second half. The only negative? I didn’t like our defense in the first half.”

Statistically, the Wildkits won’t necessarily rank as the best defensive unit Johnson’s had in her eight years at ETHS. But considering the squad’s lack of a true post player, and that three freshmen have logged major court time this winter, the Kits have more than held their end at that end of the court against some of the top teams in the state of Illinois.

First-year players Payton King, Brielle Rosemond, Kynia Hunt and (before she was injured) Jaylah McClure-Calvin have made the adjustment from junior high school to varsity defense without too many ups and downs.

Johnson has often resorted to guarding bigger post players with guards Starks and Ransom and that means leaning heavily on the freshmen at other spots.

“When they first came in here they didn’t understand man-to-man concepts, positioning, close-outs, nothing like that. They’ve come a long way,” she said. “I’m not as nervous now about putting them in certain situations. We had a good defensive team last year, but these girls are longer and more athletic and quicker, too.

“Because they’ve played so well, we’ve been able to turn both Kailey and Zuri into more help-side defenders. But I’m also happy that we’re scoring more again lately. I wouldn’t mind winning 99-98. Scoring like this gives us just as much of a chance to win as keeping the scores in the 40s.”