Women's basketball: Skyhawks fend of Highland's best shot

DIXON – Ahead by 14 points with less than 7 minutes remaining in its NJCAA Region IV semifinal game against Highland, the Sauk Valley Community College women’s basketball team looked poised to cruise into the championship game.

But as is the nature of postseason basketball in February and March, things are rarely as easy as they seem, and the Skyhawks had to cling to their lead, settling for a 74-71 victory that kept their national tournament aspirations alive.

Sauk sophomore Jordan Giddings was a member of last year’s region champion team, which finished one win shy of the 24-team national tournament; she now has her eyes set on that next step.

“For me, this is redemption for last year,” said Giddings, who had 21 points and 14 rebounds, both team highs. “We want to win the region again and then win our inter-region game so we can go one step further than we did last year.”

Against Highland on Saturday, the Skyhawks were able to work the ball inside to Giddings almost at will.

Sauk played Highland twice in the regular season, and coach Jedidiah Johnson came prepared for the Cougars’ zone defense.

“This week, we put in three new offensive sets against the zone,” said Johnson, whose team will battle Kennedy-King at home tonight at 6 p.m. in a rematch of last year’s championship game. “We got some great looks on them; they did a great job executing the plays.”

The result of those plays were huge gulfs of open lane, either from entry passes to Giddings, from penetration from guard Kayleen Terrock. Terrock finished with 20 points.

Still, for as efficient as their offense was, the Hawks couldn’t completely shake Highland, which scored 11 straight points late in the game to turn a 69-55 deficit to just 69-66 with 2 minutes remaining.

“We just had to relax. Our anxiety kicked in a little bit, our nerves,” Terrock said. “At that point, you just have to play with your head a little more than your heart.”

Highland made 24 of its 46 field-goal attempts (52.2 percent) and 17 of its 20 free throws (85.0 percent), and the hot shooting kept the game closer than the Skyhawks were wanting. Still, Johnson said he was proud of his team for taking Highland’s best punch and surviving to play at least one more game.

“They played much better tonight than they did the first two times we saw them,” he said. “We kind of expect that this time of the year.”

Terrock’s former Sterling teammate, Kiarra Harris, was pivotal for in the second half, scoring 11 of her 13 points after halftime. The third member of Sauk’s Sterling contingent, Aleena Hammelman, had the hot hand in the first half, when she scored all of her 10 points.