High School Girls Basketball
Lady Railers claim sectional title over Morton 61-30
Team improves to 35-0

 

[February 23, 2024] 

The Lincoln Lady Railers won the Class 3A Sectional Championship on Thursday night in East Peoria by completely dismantling the very skilled Lady Potters team from Morton.

No. 1 Lincoln eliminated no. 2 Morton by a final score of 61-30.

The game ended with a running clock thanks to Ceana Adams sinking two free throws with 30.9 seconds remaining in the game. Lincoln has now had a running clock on 31 of the 35 opponents they have faced this season.

While it was Morton’s game plan to stop Kloe Froebe and that no. 4, Becca Heitzig, the two of them still combined to score 30 points and if that’s stopping these two in the postseason, then Lincoln fans will continue to be more than happy with those stats.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team showed Morton from the tip-off that they can more than carry their own weight.

Taryn Stoltzenburg, who terrorizes the opponent on defense, was a force on offense against the Lady Potters. She was too hot to handle and too quick for Morton. Stoltzenburg made three 3s and a free throw for ten amazing points.

Tori Geriets was one of the toughest (and tallest at 5’8) defenders down under the basket for Lincoln and she would pour in nine important points. Her first two of the game started the scoring for Lincoln and then she added seven fourth quarter points in the paint.

Jenna Bowman is another thorn in the side of the opponent with her quiet in-your-face defense and she tossed in two 3s in the first half that really got the Lincoln crowd fired up. She’s also a favorite among some little WLB girls who held their sign up that read, in flashy multicolored markers, “Jenna B for 3!”

On the other side of the sign was “Go Lady Railers” with the names Jenna, Becca, Kloe, Tori, Taryn and Piper on it, of course.

And for the umpteenth time this season, Lincoln’s defense has to get a shoutout. The Lady Railers are relentless on defense and they denied the Lady Potters any chance of having an inside game. Morton was forced to live and die by the long shot and in the end, they would toss up a lot of missed 3s, having made only four total in the game.

Finally, when sizing up the two teams, Morton had a dominant 5’10 senior, Addy Engel who finished with 19 points, and the VanMeenen sisters, one who is 6’0 and another 5’9, and they can be a handful. Little Lincoln got the upper hand Thursday night and just wore the bigger girls down. That’s just what Lincoln does.

One final note before diving into the action:

Lady Potters Coach Bob Becker, who is in his 25th year and has over 600 career wins at Morton, spoke after the game about this Lincoln team and offered this high praise: “It’s a team on a mission and they’re led by probably Ms. Basketball in Illinois in the Froebe girl.”

For more on what Coach Becker said please check out the video.

Note: he is well aware of teams on a mission. His Lady Potter teams have four state championships.

First Quarter

Lincoln’s Kloe Froebe will win the opening tip and Tori Geriets is going to immediately catch the ball and send it right back to Froebe. Froebe finds Becca Heitzig dashing towards the Lady Potters bench and she’s going to toss the ball to that no. 4 girl. Heitzig then drives baseline and gets shutdown but it’s Geriets seeing the gap and sneaking inside the lane to retrieve the ball from Heitzig. The pass hits T.G. perfectly in the hands and she wastes no time scoring. A nice ten-second opening to the game.

Of course, Addy Engel wastes no time scoring for Morton and the game is tied, 2-2. At the 6:46 mark Taryn Stoltzenburg is going to cause the Lincoln crowd to explode with her three and the Lady Railers are back on top 5-2. Forty-six seconds later it’s Becca Heitzig hitting her first jumper of the game and the Lincoln lead is 7-2.

It took a missed shot from Froebe and a rebound from Piper Whiteman, who kicked it out to Heitzig, for that shot to happen and it really made the crowd go crazy. The fans LOVE Heitzig’s jumper! With the score 7-4, Jenna Bowman sank a three from the top of the key and with just under five minutes left to play, the crowd was again going wild. 10-4 the score.

And just wait, folks, in less than 30 seconds fans would lose their minds when Froebe blocked Ellie VanMeenen from shooting a three. A clean block all day long. The ball went flying towards the Lincoln bench and into the hands of Ceana Adams. Across the way, the Railers small but mighty student section chanted, “Not in her house. Not in her house.”

By the 3:12 mark Engel would pick up her team with a three and trim the Lincoln lead to 10-7. Twenty seconds later Heitzig was scoring again, this time off the offensive rebound.

Next, Payton Hays, a 5’6 freshman for Morton, got the Lady Potters crowd fired up when she sank a three and the lead was down to 12-10 for Lincoln. Hays’ shot was a deep three right in front of Lincoln’s bench and it hit inside the rim, rattled up and out, and bounced about two feet in the air before it settled back down and through the net. You don’t see a basket like that very often.

Froebe made her first basket of the game at the 2:02 mark and it’s a corner three in front of the Lincoln crowd that gave the Lady Railers a 15-10 advantage. The shot also moved Froebe up to no. 7 on the IHSA Girls Basketball list of most points scored in a career.

It also sparked the Lady Railers towards a 19-12 lead as the first quarter came to an end. Whiteman and Heitzig tossed in the last two buckets of the quarter.

Kudos to Whiteman for getting great position in the lane and catching the rebound off a Froebe miss and then just going back up strong for the two points. And then give credit to Stoltzenburg for a quick steal and the assist to Heitzig for another two points. That was a fast-paced fun quarter.

Second Quarter

Lincoln will start the second quarter with six straight points, four from Heitzig and two from Froebe, and take over a 25-12 lead.

Morton would only get one basket in the second quarter, right before they were caught traveling again. That Lincoln defense was really wrecking the Lady Potters. With Froebe tossing in one more bucket and Bowman hitting a three right before the buzzer, the Lady Railers would run off to the locker room with a 30-14 lead.

It was a rather quick and quiet quarter, with Lincoln tossing in eleven points and holding the opponent to two points.

Third Quarter

Stoltzenburg got the crowd to their feet to start the second half. Her three in front of the Lady Railers bench at the 7:22 mark stretched the lead to 33-14.

Engel made a bucket for Morton to break the spell they were under, but it was going to take a miracle to stop the “Red and Green Express” as Jay Hardin calls the Lady Railers. Lincoln was going to roll through the third quarter, thanks to the offensive efforts of Stoltzenburg and Froebe. Stoltzenburg would hit another three to make the score 38-17. Froebe was front and center with her eight points and she finally got her first trip to the free throw line in the third quarter. She sank two shots from the line at the 3:17 mark and when this eight minutes was complete Lincoln was controlling the game with a 44-21 lead.

Fourth Quarter

Morton was fighting hard to escape that running clock and so with the first three of the quarter, the Lady Potters trimmed the lead to 44-24. Froebe kept pushing and after her baskets the lead was back to 48-24.

And then how about that T.G. in the paint?! Lincoln just kept switching things up to fool the Morton defense and Geriets benefited her team by scoring seven straight Lincoln points.

With three minutes to play, Lincoln was up 55-28. Morton was facing the end of their season in a hurry and they found themselves in a desperate situation. The remainder of Lincoln’s points came from the free throw line, as Froebe and Stoltzenburg each earned one more point before taking a seat on the bench.

Grace Schneider earned her two points at the line with 1:05 left in the game and then it was Ceana Adams with two points from the line with 30.9 seconds remaining. Adams pushed the Lady Railers into a running clock for the remainder of the game as the scoreboard showed 61-30.

In half a minute the game was over and the Lady Potters were understandably emotional as their season ended at the hands of Lincoln. The Morton players and coaches stood by to watch Lincoln run to collect the sectional championship plaque. The Lady Railers hoisted the plaque in the air with fans cheering loudly, before a smiling Kloe Froebe carried it over for the team picture.

Geriets, Bowman, Froebe, Heitzig, Stoltzenburg and Whiteman with the nets and the championship plaque.

East Peoria also cut the nets down for Lincoln and one of the nets was placed over the plaque, front and center, for pictures.

Kloe Froebe led all scorers with 20 points.

Froebe now momentarily rests in the no. 7 spot on the list of career points scored in IHSA Girls Basketball history with 3,183.

Becca Heitzig and Taryn Stoltzenburg each scored 10 points for Lincoln.

Addy Engel led Morton with 19 points.

Clear the calendar for basketball next week, Railer fans!

Lincoln (35-0) will play Dixon (27-6) on Monday, February 26, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. in the Lasalle-Peru Super-Sectional.

Dixon defeated Maple Park Kaneland 45-36 in the Sycamore Sectional Championship on Thursday night.

Scoring

Lincoln 61

Froebe 20
Heitzig 10
Stoltzenburg 10
Geriets 9
Bowman 6
Whiteman 2
Adams 2
Schneider 2

Morton 30

Engel 19
A. VanMeenen 4
Hays 3
E. VanMeenen 2
Selke 2

[Teena Lowery]