Titans' Girls Basketball: GBS Falls to Loyd, Niles West in Sectional

box-and-one defense finally bottled up Niles West’s Jewell Loyd. After two regular season games against Niles West in which Loyd scored a combined 71 points, the Titans held her to only 20.

But the difference on Monday night was in Loyd’s teammates. Niles West’s unheralded role players came through in the second half as Glenbrook South fell to the Wolves, 44-29 in the IHSA Class 4A Park Ridge (Maine East) Sectional semi-final.

“The thing that beat us tonight was their other girls,” Glenbrook South coach Steve Weissentstein said. “They did a really nice job of getting a lot of offensive rebounds. I thought their second shots were what really hurt us.”

Glenbrook South exploited Niles West’s zone defense through the first quarter. Abby Keller did a nice job of finding open space and scored 10 of the Titans’ first 12 points.

But Loyd matched her shot for shot. Niles West’s 5-foot-10 junior guard shot 4-for-6 in the first quarter and the Wolves enjoyed a six-point cushion.

“We started out on a match-up zone trying to take away their interior and find their shooters on the outside,” Niles West coach Tony Konsewicz said. “When they started going high-low we had to make an adjustment.”

Niles West switched into a triangle-and-two defense, focusing on point guard Colleen McDonagh and forward Ali Shaw. The adjustment worked as the two combined for only four points on the game.

A back-and-forth second quarter saw Niles West maintain a six-point lead into the intermission. But Niles West grabbed the momentum at the start of the second half. On consecutive possessions, Niles West’s Casey Nakawatase and Dashae Shumate scored easy putbacks after collecting offensive rebounds from Loyd’s missed jumpers.

The layups put Niles West up by 12 points, 34-22, and Glenbrook South never cut the lead to less than nine points from that point forward.

“We were really focused sometimes too much on Jewell and finding out where she was that the other girls kind of slipped in there,” McDonagh said. “Their whole team played great.”

Loyd didn’t hit a shot from the field in the final 15 minutes of the game, missing her last seven attempts. She scored only six points in the second half.

Glenbrook South still couldn’t put together anything offensively in the fourth quarter. They missed their first five shots and Niles West held them scoreless for the first four minutes before Kelly Minx drove inside for a layup and completed the three-point play.

“Offensively when we’re patient we get good shots and we’re not we don’t get good shots,” Weissenstein said. “That was kind of the story game tonight.”

Glenbrook South scored only nine points on four made field goals after halftime and never led during the game.

Even with Monday’s loss, the Titans still won 20 games on the season, including a regional championship.  

“We kind of struggled a little bit at the beginning, but we tried to mesh together and we really started playing hard and well together towards the end of the season,” McDonagh said. “We just kind of had a hiccup tonight, but it was a good season.”