Make that 50 in a row for the powerful
Bolingbrook High School girls basketball team.
The Raiders, who are
ranked No. 4 nationally by MaxPreps and have won two consecutive Illinois Class 4A championships, stuck 2010 Class 3A champion Lombard Montini with a 16-point loss in the headline game of the McDonald's Shootout at Willowbrook High School in Villa Park.
Bolingbrook (13-2) has lost out of state this year, and last year. But never in Illinois. The Raiders' 50-game streak goes back more than two years.
Tennessee recruit
Ariel Massengale, who played on last summer's USA Basketball U17 women's national team, scored 20 points and had six rebounds for Bolingbrook. Connecticut recruit
Morgan Tuck had 23 points.
Any doubters about this team?
The game was played in front of more than 3,000 people and will be the only Bolingbrook vs. Montini battle this season. Because they are in different conferences and different enrollment classes, they won't meet again. Until, maybe, next year in the McDonald's Shootout.
The loss snapped Montini's win streak at 36. The Lady Broncos (23-1 this season) hadn't lost since, um, losing to Bolingbrook last year.
*
Simeon (Chicago), 14-0 and ranked No. 4 nationally by MaxPreps, will face one of its biggest pre-tournament and pre-Chicago Public League Tournament battles Saturday, when it faces
Morgan Park (Chicago) in a game that will likely be played at Chicago State. At least two players to watch in a game featuring lots of college recruits: Morgan Park's
Wayne Blackshear, who is committed to Louisville, and Simeon sophomore
Jabari Parker, who still has nearly two years to stack up even more than multiple the major-college scholarship offers he already has.
5 BIG PERFORMANCES* Wisconsin-Green Bay recruit Keifer Sykes of Marshall scored a career-high 35 points, and had the game-winning basket with four seconds left, as the Commandos knocked off Chicago power Whitney Young, 64-62. "I‘d never beaten Young in my high school career and it was definitely a senior goal to beat them," Sykes told the Chicago Sun-Times.
* Chicago Farragut‘s Demetrius Tolliver scored 26 points in a 67-57 win over Milwaukee Riverside in an MLK Dream Classic game played at Whitney Young. The loss was Riverside‘s first of the season. Farragut previously knocked off Young.
* Dan Sheehy scored 26 points and grabbed seven rebounds, leading Chicago Brother Rice to 73-64 win over Marist. The win broke a four-game losing streak.
* DePaul recruit
Jamie Crockett scored 25 points, helping Crete-Monee to a 67-62 win over Homewood-Flossmoor.
* Brittany Collins, a freshman at Maine West, scored 27 points in a 63-59 win over Plainfield North in the McDonald's Shootout.
FOOTBALL: MAINE SOUTH COACHES EARN SUSPENSIONSMaine South High School head football coach David Inserra and assistant coach Rick Magsamen were given a one-game suspension by the Illinois High School Association for their roles in a number of violations at the 2010 football playoffs which were uncovered in state and school investigations.
Maine South was found to have created and distributed a number of fraudulent sideline passes for the Class 8A semifinal and championship game. The school also had more than the number of "allowable coaches on the field and in the coaching press box," according to the IHSA. There were also sportsmanship issues involving the school's fans and team officials.
"There were a litany of indiscretions that took place at the state finals this year and that situation was compounded by issues that occurred at other playoff games," IHSA Executive Director Marty Hickman said in a statement. "That established a pattern of behavior in our minds and, thus, it became important to look at the program as a whole."
The suspensions will be in place for the first week of the 2011 season. The football program is on IHSA probation until Dec. 1, 2011. Maine South will not be allowed to host a playoff game, but is not barred from postseason competition. The IHSA also is retaining approximately $5,000 of Maine South's playoff reimbursement.
STORYLINES AROUND CHICAGOLAND* University of Kentucky recruit
Anthony Davis injured his thumb in Chicago Perspectives-MSA's 79-69 loss to St. John (Danvers, Mass.) in a game played in Ohio. He was expected to return to action late this week, but did not play Tuesday in Perspectives' 70-25 loss to Chicago Collins.
* Also out this week with an injury is Louisville recruit
Wayne Blackshear of Morgan Park. He has been slowed by a knee injury and missed what was the start of Morgan Park's game Tuesday against Chicago Bogan. Blackshear is expected to try and play in Saturday's city showdown game against unbeaten Simeon. Blackshear injured his knee in last Saturday's 78-67 win over Seattle Garfield in the HoopHall Classic at Springfield, Mass. The Bogan-Morgan Park game was suspended because of a near brawl on the court after a foul in the fourth quarter. Players and fans of both teams rushed onto the court after an intentional foul called on a Bogan player.
* Mark Onstott, the boys swimming and diving coach at
New Trier (Winnetka), was one of 21 named as a High School Coach of the Year by the National Federation of State High School Associations Coaches Association. Onstott's teams won four state championships in six years, the last coming in 2009.
Paul Bowker, an online and newspaper sports journalist for 25 years and the author of two Major League Baseball books, covers the Chicago area for MaxPreps. He may be reached at bowkerpaul1@aol.com.
