By Bobby Narang
Batavia High School girls basketball head coach Kevin Jensen wanted to organize an event that would include numerous Batavia area teams and pit them against another conference.
That’s how the inaugural MLK Day Conference Challenge that pit the DuKane Conference and Mid-Suburban League was formed. The six-game schedule featured some of the best teams in each conference Monday, Jan. 20.
In all, the Mid-Suburban League (MSL) won three of the five matchup games, with Sycamore the lone team from an outside conference due to a last-minute drop out.
In the tournament, Elk Grove of the MSL defeated Glenbard North, 48-31, in the first game, Hersey (MSL) took a 75-59 triumph over St. Charles North, and Wheaton Warrenville South of the DuKane recorded a 48-38 victory over Conant.
In the second half of the tournament, Sycamore knocked off Lake Park (DuKane), 57-49, Geneva (DuKane) beat Buffalo Grove, 58-48, and Schaumburg defeated the host Bulldogs, 51-42, (DuKane) in the final game.
“We were starting to put this together in the Spring, and I was downstate and started floating this out to coaches,” Jensen said. “I wanted to host something, wanted to have another home event. We go away to both of our tournaments (for Thanksgiving and Christmas), have done different shootouts like Fremd and Benet. One year we played 30 games and only had seven home games. We have a nice spot, so we went over some ideas, like a bracket-buster, but it shaped up conference versus conference.
“Sycamore filled in for an MSL team that wasn’t able to make it. I’m hoping we can do something like this, a little bit bigger next year. Some other MSL schools said they were interested…Maybe we can grow it to be Saturday and Monday next year. It would be nice to play one of the days or both, if teams decide and how it will evolve. I thought the conference versus conference was kind of cool. I just have to make sure we have even amount of teams. It was fun. I could sit here and watch all of our conference teams play. Other coaches can do the same. It was a bit of a selling point to our hudl focus camera (which records and uploads) we had up there (high in the gym). Nobody had to come here and film. As soon as the game was over, I uploaded it and shared it to every coach and they had their games. We had nice posters, program made up. Hopefully, it grows and we can make it a little better every year.”
Jensen, if the tournament continues, hopes to get a victory. The Bulldogs raced out to a 14-5 lead, but Schaumburg made 12 three-pointers and relied on an 11-1 run to take control of the game.
“I don’t think we were completely all together tonight,” Jensen said. “They did a nice job switching man to zone. That was a good play for (Schaumburg). We are struggling to make anything from outside. Our biggest threats are Erin (Golden) driving and Tessa (Towers) cleaning stuff up around the rim. They went zone and shut that down. We lacked a little tonight, whatever that is that gets us through a tough moment or battling back when you think the score should be flipped.”
Meanwhile, Geneva relied on a 11-0 spurt in the third quarter to defeat Buffalo Grove. Lindsay Blackmore finished with a game-high 24 points for the Vikings, 15-5.
“I love that run,” Geneva head coach Sarah Meadows said. “Our kids came out ready, the press got some steals and deflections, some putbacks, and we scored off that an in our halfcourt offense and forced them to change defenses.”